Shadow Wolf
by ScarlettRunsRed
Summary: Deborah Wilson was born and raised to become the perfect assassin and heir to the League of Assassins, but became an outlier in her family in order to pursue what she has been looking for all her life. Freedom. Follow her from her point of view as she discovers what it means to be a hero, and how she rises from her past to become her alter ego-Shadow Wolf.
1. Chasing the Silver Lining

**Hello fanfic readers! I'm so excited to share this story with you guys, since it is my first and whatnot. :p I hope you all enjoy reading this chapter, since I was practically jumping in my seat as I wrote this. Please feel free to give me feedback or PM me, I love meeting new people, especially awesome people like you guys (ya'll are obviously awesome since you have fanfics) . Well without further ado, I present to you *drumroll*, "Shadow Wolf" ..**

***DISCLAIMER* I don't own "Young Justice", because if I did, I would have never cancelled it. :(**

Chapter 1-Chasing the Silver Lining

I looked out the window that was next to seat that I was sitting in, and I spotted a dark figure walking in a trenchcoat among other people who were scurrying to get to their destinations. I knew immediately who the person was by the way he walked. I knew everything I could have known about him years ago, from his favorite food to...well, the way he walked. Speaking of favorite food, it came to no surprise to me that he chose this fancy steakhouse restaurant to meet with me.

My heart accelerated as he entered the restaurant, and I snorted. He looked like a wreck. Any normal human being would have thought that he was perfectly fine and dandy, but since I'm anything but normal, I studied him and made mental notes to myself. His black hair was slightly disheveled, and his blue eyes were slightly puffed up. He clearly didn't get any sleep the night before, but I clearly knew why.

The tall man made eye contact with me, and it took him a few seconds to react, as if he were deciding how he should act towards me. He settled with a broad grin, and practically glided his way towards me.

"Deborah!"

I grinned and got out of my seat to greet him.

"Its been too long, Bruce."

He pulled me in for a warm embrace, and I tried my best to not tense at the sudden act. I hesitantly wrapped my arms around his back as he chuckled.

"It has. You lost your sudden impulse to run into my arms like you used to when you were younger."

We let go of each other as I tilted my head to the side and mused.

"Well, I would practically tackle you down if I did that now, so no thank you."

He nodded and sat down in his seat as I sat in my own at the same time.

"Well, it's good to finally see you after all these years. My, have you grown! You look exactly like Nyssa."

I flinched at my mom's name, and I stared at my silver ring as I calmly responded.

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

I felt guilt wash over me as I looked back at Bruce, who had become strangely quiet. My mother hated him, and turned my aunt against him. I didn't need to tell him that though, because I knew that he found out on his own. What he deserved to know was why I was here, and that he could trust me.

So before even thinking it through, I blurted out of nowhere.

"I'm out of the League of Assassins."

He furrowed his eyebrows as I mentally slapped myself, and tried my best to explain my past. _Way to go, Debs. _

"My mom and I left my grandfather six years ago. Nyssa was angry him for some time, but decided to leave when she became angry with his plans for the League. We were on our own for a while, traveling to different places where she made me receive even more training than I had from the League. She wanted me to become the best of the best, to be a new breed of human that would be able to take over the League effectively. So I went around the world to different places from China to Greece, and from Brazil to the Bermuda Triangle."

I paused for a bit, and looked at Bruce, who was deep in thought. I knew that he was keeping up with what I was saying, so I decided to continue telling him about the past few years.

"When I was fifteen, we ran across a secret organization named Spyral. The headmasters saw my potential and offered to enrol me in his program for minors, which seemed promising at the time. I thought that I would have a chance to forget the League once and for all, so I got in. My mom got angry and told me that I deserved to be a leader of the new concept that she had come up for the League, and decided to rejoin Ra's after I told her that I was ashamed of being an heir. I didn't know why she wanted to even reunite with my grandfather, but then I realized that she was just looking to take charge of the League and had gotten angry when Ra's rejected her leadership. I haven't contacted her or the League since."

There was silence for a good amount of time, and I felt pretty stupid for babbling non-stop without a chance to think it through. But I felt relieved at the same time though, like if I just got all these things off my chest. I began to battle with my thoughts, and decided to shut up and wait for Bruce's response.

"And what have you decided to do with your life now?"

It took no hesitation for me to respond.

"I don't want my view on justice to be biased from my family or my home. I want it to be based on what I know is right, and what will always be true. The League of Assassins doesn't offer justice, it offers vengeance and a depiction of what is an orderly chaos. Now, I'm not saying that my destiny is to destroy the League of Shadows. I just want to practice my morals and integrity to what I believe in. So, to answer your question, I want to be part of doing good for once."

"Didn't you have a chance at doing that with that program you got in?"

I flinched, and smiled ruefully.

"That's what I hoped for. All that happened those past three years to me was becoming a test subject and a mercenary. Not exactly heroic, but I made friends there, friends that would help me become more-" I bent my fingers to make quotation marks, "sociable. If it weren't for them, I would probably be in some mess right now."

I was about to tell him more about SPYRAL when a young waiter came to attend us. He looked like he was in his late twenties, and had blonde hair and warm brown eyes. I wasn't going to lie, he was a good-looking dude.

"Good evening! My name is Spencer, and I will be your waiter for this evening. Do you guys want to start off with drinks?"

Bruce looked at me and gave me a 'we'll talk later' look, and turned to Spencer.

"I'll have a mineral water, please."

Spencer smiled.

"Sure thing, sir. Can I get you anything, miss?"

"I'll have an iced tea please."

"Mango, raspberry, or peach?"

"Peach is fine, thanks."

I felt his eyes lingering on me for a few seconds before he left to get our drinks, and I raised an eyebrow when I saw Bruce grit his teeth.

"Don't worry about him, Bruce."

He nodded his head when I made eye contact with him, and changed the subject.

"So tell me about that organization you were in. SPYRAL, right?"

"Right. Well, I became part of their elite program, which enlisted mercenaries, assassins, and brilliant scientists who were all under 25 to carry out missions with only one contract. We would complete at least 5 years in the program, and in return we would have a clean record and 1.2 million dollars to use in whatever manner we'd like to. I only completed three years of my time though, because I made yet another deal with the headmasters. I allowed them to conduct different experiments on me, some that had no effect on me, and some that did."

I looked at Bruce square in the eyes, and without even thinking, I grabbed my steak knife and slit the palm of my right hand. I watched as Bruce furrowed his eyebrows and watched in awe as my hand healed in seconds.

"The most recent experiment gave me a superhuman healing factor that allows me to regenerate damaged or destroyed areas of my cellular structure at a rate far greater than that of an ordinary human."

"Extraordinary...Were you the only one who was experimented on?"

"My team and another group was experimented as well. Not everyone was placed in the same labs, though, so we were all tested on different experiments. All in all, there were fourteen different test subjects."

"What other experiments had effects on you?"

I sighed and ran a hand through my ebony hair.

"Well because of my healing ability, many of my natural physical attributes have been enhanced. My musculature generates considerably less fatigue toxins than the muscles of an ordinary human being, granting me superhuman levels of stamina in all physical activities. My natural strength, agility and reflexes have been enhanced to levels that are beyond the natural limits of the human body. But other than that, I honestly don't know which experiments had effects on me. None of us were granted with any information about the experiments, so we would have to find out on our own, meaning that we would notice out of nowhere. That was one of the reasons why the organization got disbanded. We all parted ways after we confronted the headmasters, but we keep in touch every now and then. I can't really say how much I know about the others' whereabouts, but I do know that they're all hiding for good reasons."

I glanced up as I saw Spencer arriving with our drinks, and quickly cleaned off the blood on the steak knife with the bottom of my flannel before placing it back on the table.

"Alright, I have the club soda for you sir-" he placed the drink on Bruce's cup coaster,

"and a peach iced tea for you, miss." He placed the drink on my cup coaster as well, and I noticed that his hand was slightly trembling. At first, I was confused on why he would be nervous, but he probably just realized that he was serving Bruce Wayne.

I smiled at the young waiter and thanked him, and found that Bruce was deep in thought.

Since I knew that it would be best to not interrupt him, I turned to Spencer.

"I think I'm ready to order now."

He nodded and got out and electronic notepad.

I glanced at the menu and chose a random meal, since I obviously lied about being ready to order my meal.

"I'll have the filet mignon, well done please, and a side of grilled asparagus and garlic potatoes."

I stared at Bruce who was still silent, and I sighed.

"He'll have the same order as well."

We were at the restaurant for hours. Bruce told me about his current life and insisted that I stayed with him at the Wayne Manor. I was reluctant at first since I didn't want to be a burden to him, so we decided that I would stay for a few days with him, and I would decide later if I wanted to permanently live in Gotham.

Even though I knew that Bruce was more than capable of aiding me as himself and Batman, I also knew that my past would meet me in the present. Whether it was Spyral or the League of Assassins, I knew that I still had ties with them.

I meant what I said when I told Bruce that I wanted to do good. All of my life, I had been wondering what my purpose was in this world. Growing up, I knew that I was set apart from my family. My father-Slade Wilson, my mother-Nyssa Raatko, and even my grandfather-Ra's Al Ghul knew that I couldn't truly be like them. My father rejected me as his daughter, my mother pitied me for not having pleasure in killing, and my grandfather was only proud of my my capacity and abilities. I tried to please them, but I always wondered what made me different from them, what set me apart.

I discovered what turned me into an outlier in my family when I was sent on a mission to Albania to kill a man and his family. I didn't even know his name or what he had done against the League of Assassins, all I knew was his location. I snuck through security and got blood on my katanas in less than a minute, my mind set on completing the job for approval. I kicked down the front door and found the family eating at the dinner table, oblivious to what I had just done before.

The man instinctively threw himself over his wife and son, and yelled in a language I couldn't understand. They were all trembling with fear, and the man was sobbing as he caressed his son's face.

He looked at me in the eyes, and spoke with a shaky voice.

"Please don't make my wife and son suffer if they must die. I beg you, please have them feel no pain!"

I felt a pain in my chest, and I discovered that moment what set me apart from my family. I had a conscious, and they didn't. Without thinking, I told the man and his family to leave, and I returned home with fear.

The League knew I didn't do what they asked of me, and they forced me to visit the place again, where I found the family's bodies in pieces on the wooden floor, and their heads on the dinner table. I was beaten half to death in the same house by Ra's orders, and my mother stared at me with a blank expression as I cried out her name. I was thirteen then.

I was now eighteen, and as Bruce got up from his seat, I immediately followed him to his car. I was capable of making my own decisions now, and whether the League or Spyral liked it or not, I was moving on with my life. I was going to take Bruce's offer and chase the silver lining.


	2. Ch 2-Welcome to The Family

** Hey guys! I am back (Said in Arnold's voice). I didn't put his last name because, between me and you guys, I can't. *Shaves head in shame and jumps off a cliff***

**Haha, but for real now, I actually posted a chapter up for you awesome creatures. :P**

**I really hope you enjoy this chapter, since I tried my very best to make this chapter heartfelt. And to answer PrettyKitty Luvs U , (I feel so loved), I hope this chapter answers your question. :)**

** Reviews are always welcome, and feel free to P.M me, you guys! I love talking to my fellow fandom comrades! (I tried my best to not say that mentally with an Aussie accent).**

** So I'll leave you guys to it then! :)**

Chapter 2- "Welcome to the Family, Deborah"

I ran through the woods with my heart beating furiously, and my feet sore from the sharp pieces of woods piercing my bare feet. I didn't know who I was running from, but I was immensely afraid. My senses guided me through the darkness since the moon was hidden deep within the clouds, and by the time I stopped running, my black shirt and jeans were torn to shreds. I looked up to where I halted, and I saw glowing eyes all around me. I was in a den.

I knew that I was here for a reason, but I couldn't understand why. I braced myself for what would have come next, and waited for the creatures in the dark to attack.

They didn't.

I allowed myself to crouch down on the cool floor, and one by one, the creatures of the dark came into the light. They were wolves. Huge and intimidating, and they were all lying by my feet and next to my side. I was confused for a few moments, but I made no movement whatsoever and allowed the beautiful creatures to rest by me.

I shivered from the cold, and I realized then that they were giving me warmth. I was shocked, and I felt tears clouding my eyes. Why was I crying?

Throw her to the wolves and she will return leading the pack.

I woke up immediately, with my chest pounding uncontrollably. Okay, what was that?! I looked around as I sat up in my bed, and sighed in relief when I remembered that I was in my new room in the Wayne Manor. It was my third day here, and I still woke up confused by my surroundings.

That dream made me woke up in shivers. Who was that voice? Why was I being chased?...Why was I in a den of wolves? I had all these questions, and of course, they remained unanswered.

I shook my head and got out of bed, and headed to the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror before deciding to shower, and I stood still for a few moments, analyzing my complexion. My skin was lighter than usual, from being an olive tone to a porcelain tone. I have never been this pale, but then again, I was always in the outdoors regardless of the weather or seasons. It didn't help either that my hair was black, or that my eyes were such a light shade of gray, that they looked almost white in the sunlight. I looked creepy, no doubt.

Or atleast I thought I did.

After a warm and steamy shower, I changed into some clothes that I bought the day before with my own money. Yes, I had enough money for a year's worth of clothing. Did I spend it all on that though? No. I may have spent a good amount a few months back on fried chicken and pizza, but in my defense, I have never eaten fast food until I was seventeen and I was loving it. It was a miracle that I didn't become obese the past few months, but I had to thank my handy dandy healing factor for that.

I walked down the hallway and down the stairs in a pair of yoga pants and green tank top, and was surprised to see Bruce in the living room with a teenage boy in a blue hoodie. It took me less than a heartbeat to recognize who the boy was, since he looked around fifteen years old, and I smiled as I made my way towards them.

"Richard, right?"

The teenage boy looked at Bruce and raised his eyebrows.

"This was the surprise you were telling me about?"

I looked at Bruce as well, and he just smiled without a word and left.

Way to go, Wayne.

Richard looked at me and offered his hand.

"You can call me Dick. I'm sorry, but I have no idea who you are, so don't mind me asking for your name."

I smirked and shook his hand.

"I wouldn't, but you haven't properly asked me."

He laughed and plopped himself on the sofa.

"My bad. What's your name, fair maiden?"

I sat down on the other side of the sofa, and responded.

"Deborah. Deborah Wilson. And before you start wondering what to say, I do know what you do on your spare time. It's really an honor to meet you, Boy Wonder."

"So you know that Bruce is…"

"Batman? Yeah, I do."

"Oh. How do you know him?"

I sighed and tilted my head.

"We go way back. You know how he was trained by the League of Assassins for a period of time, right?"

"Right."

"Well, he was trained by my grandfather, Ra's Al Ghul."

"Ra's Al Ghul is your grandfather?!"

I laughed when I saw his shocked face, and nodded.

"I did not expect that. I thought you were...actually, I couldn't guess who you were at all."

"That's understandable."

Dick scooted closer and looked at me with his curious blue eyes.

"Continue, continue."

"Ah yes, well he was trained in the League, where I spent most of my life training as well. Since I was seven, I was following him everywhere like a puppy. I was extremely attached to Wayne, until he left when I was like ten. I parted ways with the League when I was fourteen and decided to visit you guys here after I became free to do whatever I wanted. Bruce is trying to convince me to stay though."

"That's awesome. So are you into crime-fighting?"

"I'd like to, so that's mainly the reason why I came here. I have training, but I need someone to keep me in check...I don't want to be the killer I once was."

Dick stared at me and shook his head.

"Even though I don't really know you, Deborah, I know that you aren't a killer. You have something in your eyes that they don't. I can't really explain what it is, but it's a good thing."

I was touched by the younger teen's words, and he blushed when he realized what he said.

"...Thank you."

**^Third POV^**

Alfred smiled as he grilled the chicken breasts on the stove. The sound of laughter erupted from the living room, which made Bruce stop typing on his laptop to look at Alfred.

"They're really getting along, aren't they?"

"I believe they are, master Bruce."

Bruce mused for a bit before responding.

"Deborah deserves to have people in her life who care about her."

Alfred nodded as he took the cornbread out of the oven.

"I don't know if you have noticed, master Bruce, but she has a nature to her that brings peace wherever she is. I was in awe when I first met her. She had endured so much, yet she remains to be so humble and kind. She is such a lovely soul."

Bruce smiled as he watched Dick move his hands frantically in the air as he was telling Deborah a story that had her in stitches.

He promised Deborah then that he would do whatever he could to give Deborah the life that she deserved. He would do everything in his power to protect her and make her feel at home.

He then began to doubt himself as he thought about the League of Assassins and Deathstroke. If they found out that she was living with him, and let alone associated with the Batman, they would come after him too. And how would he come up with a civilian identity for the girl that would successfully hide her past?

Bruce ran a hand over his face as he closed his laptop screen, and looked back at Deborah and Dick. He stared at Deborah, and he felt his heart being tugged when she looked at him and smiled. Whether he allowed it or not, she already made her way into his heart.

He decided then to have faith in himself to do what is right. He didn't care anymore about the League or Slade. He cared about Deborah, who was now part of his family. And his family meant more than anything.

He got up and walked over to the two teens, and sat down on the brown recliner next to Dick. He quietly listened as Dick told them a story about Wally and his antics, and smiled as he heard Deborah's pleasant laugh and Dick's cackle.

It would be all worth it.


	3. Ch 3-Little Bird With the Big Blue Eyes

**Hey, guys! I hope you like this heartfelt chapter-it made me laugh, and it made me cry as I wrote this. You'll learn more about Deborah's past, and of course, you'll see more bonding between Deborah and the Batfamily! Yass. :3 Well any-who, I present to you Chapter 3. :)**

***DISCLAIMER*- I sadly don't own DC comics or YJ, so I'll probably cry in the corner now.**

The past few weeks have gone by so fast in the Wayne Manor. I spent most of my time training and reading files and records of Gotham's most wanted, which took longer to go through than I thought. I told Bruce that I wanted to know about Gotham's villains before getting on the streets with him, and he allowed me to use this past month to get back on track.

I was currently waiting in the Batcave for Bruce to arrive with Dick from Mount Justice, which made me kind of hungry. Since I knew that there was no food in the Batcave, I trudged my way upstairs into the kitchen and grabbed a bowl of fruit, and walked back to the Batcave.

By the time I arrived, Batman and Robin were already there, and I had already finished eating two bananas, an apple, and four strawberries.

Dick greeted me with a wave and a smile as Bruce thrusted a file in my right hand.

"You are now Deborah Lloyd, Dick's biological cousin."

I raised an eyebrow at Bruce as he took off his cowl and opened the file. Sure enough, there was a passport, credit card, and two pairs of keys which all had the name "Deborah Lloyd" engraved on them.

I looked up at them and tilted my head.

"So I'm from his mother's side?"

Dick nodded and replied.

"I gave Bruce the idea to have you be one of my relatives."

I smiled and ruffled his already messy hair, and placed the bowl of fruit on a nearby desk.

"Good. I'm clearly not young enough to pass as Bruce's adopted daughter. Thanks for all this, Bruce. It really means a lot."

He nodded and made a notion towards the file.

"I already fixed your background story as well, but you can read it later. Dick, you can head upstairs now."

Dick nodded and took the bowl of fruit with him as he left, to my dismay. I frowned and turned to Bruce, who handed me an sd card before unbuckling his utility belt.

"Your civilian identity has no ties with the League of Assassins or SPYRAL, so you shouldn't worry about having to reveal yourself to the world. Ra's al Ghul knows who we are, so if he comes by to visit, it is up to our alter egos to interfere. And if your father discovers who you are, it is up to you to protect our identities."

I nodded my head in agreement, and Bruce continued.

"I already sent orders for your suit to be created. I'll let you know when it's ready for you to wear. You will not use the katanas you have with you. I mean it when I say that you cannot kill anyone whatsoever."

He took off his cape and hung it up as he continued.

"During the entire week, you will be attending Gotham University studying whatever major you prefer. I have the list in the folder as well, so you can decide by Monday morning."

Bruce looked at me and nodded once.

"That's all we needed to discuss for now. Do you need to talk to me about anything?"

I furrowed my eyebrows and leaned against the nearest desk.

"If anything happens with the League of Assassins, I need you to let me know. I know that you are more than capable of defending yourself and your household, but if any trouble occurs because of me, I won't make you fight my fight. You have Dick now, and I don't want anything to happen to him or you."

I looked up at Bruce and he frowned.

"Deborah, I know that you are mature enough to handle those problems, but you can't think like that. You are one of us now, which means that your problems are our problems now."

I crossed my arms and tensed up as I spoke.

"But what if Ra's brings a band of assassins through Gotham to find me? Or what if Slade makes your civilian identity one of his targets to mess with me? I can't endanger you all like that."

He clenched his jaw in disapproval.

"What do you propose then? That you turn yourself in and go back to your past? I won't allow that to happen, Deborah."

I sighed and shook my head.

"I can't fight against them, Bruce."

"You aren't going to fight against them. You're fighting for yourself, for your _freedom_! You need to understand that."

I looked away and he grabbed me by the shoulders and mentally forced me to look back at him.

"Deborah, you aren't alone in this. You need to realize that you are free from the League. If anything should happen to us or Gotham, we have other people that we can trust as well, the other League."

I raised my eyebrows.

"The Justice League?"

He nodded and released me from his grip.

I stood still for a bit before responding.

"Thank you, Bruce...I need to ask you a favor, though."

I straightened my posture as I continued.

"I need to find some people, ones that I know that I can trust if we need their help."

"They're your teammates from SPYRAL, aren't they?"

I nodded and he sighed.

"We will do our best to track them down, but you cannot visit them without my say."

"Alright, you have my word."

He looked at me for a while before giving me somewhat of a smile.

"Let's head up now. I asked Alfred to fix us a midnight snack."

I grinned and walked behind him as we headed towards the kitchen.

"Let's hope that Dick hasn't eaten the rest of the carrot cake."

We arrived and I was right-Dick finished the carrot cake. I rolled my eyes as Dick gave us a guilty smile and helped Alfred serve some coffee and blueberry muffins.

I looked over at Alfred and smiled when I saw that he was in his pajamas.

"Do they always wake you up like this, Alfred?"

He sighed and looked at the two heroes before responding.

"I'm afraid so. I can't get a bloody wink before 3 AM. I suppose that the life of a butler is not as glamorous as you perceive it to be."

I laughed and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Well, next time they are being absolutely unbearable, make sure you knock at my door! I'd love to give you a hand."

He waved his hand in the air as he poured more water into the coffee maker.

"Oh, I couldn't possibly do that! It'd be an utter horror if I made you suffer as well, Miss Deborah!"

I shook my head as I grabbed a muffin from the plate served on the table.

"Nonsense! I only sleep about two hours a day as it is, and I'm usually roaming downstairs anyways. I'm never really tired since I have my healing factor."

"I would love to have one of them handy healing factors. Why, I'd be more in shape than Master Wayne."

I laughed and sat next to Dick, who was on his second muffin.

"Very true. So will you let me help you next time?"

He raised his hands in the air and smiled.

"Oh, very well then."

"Thank you, Alfred."

He grinned as he sat down next to Bruce.

"No, thank you, Miss Deborah."

I looked over at Dick and saw that he had traces of lipstick on his jawline, and I gave him one of those looks that said, "We're going to have a little talk later whether you like it or not". He smirked as he drank his glass of milk, and I rolled my eyes.

Before I could have said anything to Dick, Bruce got up from his seat and looked at the three of us.

"I'm going to head up to sleep now. Dick, since it's a Friday night, you can stay up for a bit, but help Alfred clear all this up. Goodnight, everyone."

"Goodnight."

"Nighty-night."

"Sweet dreams, Master Bruce."

The Dark Knight left to his room, and I looked across to Alfred.

"Alfred, you should go to sleep as well. We can clean this up, right Dick?"

Dick nodded and replied.

"Yeah, for sure. You don't have to worry about us."

He slung an arm around me and smiled.

"We got this."

Alfred looked at the both of us with his tired eyes for a few moments and smiled.

"Oh, alright. Sweet dreams to both of you."

We grinned and bid him goodnight as well, and he trudged his way to his bedroom.

I sighed and released Dick's muscular arm around my shoulders before looking at him straight in the eye.

"So who's your lady friend?"

He smiled as he wiped off the traces of coral lipstick off his chin before responding.

"My _lady friend_ is Zatanna, a teammate."

I raised my eyebrows.  
>"Zatanna Zatara. Never knew that you were into magicians."<p>

"I'm not, but she's an exception."

I nodded and stretched my arms out before cracking my spine.

"So is it something official or are you guys just friends with benefits?"

He took off his mask and studied it for a few seconds before responding.

"I don't really know. I mean, we've been together for over a year now, but I don't think that she likes me enough to be in a serious relationship...I guess we're just casual about it."

I frowned but since I felt that I shouldn't say anything else, I kept quiet.

Dick looked up at me with his bright blue eyes and smiled ruefully.

"I should probably do something about that, huh?"

I tilted my head and mused for a bit.

"You're a smart young man, Dick. I believe that the decision is entirely up to you."

"But what would you do if you were in my shoes?"

I sighed before replying.

"Well, you're still fifteen, so you have no rush to get into a serious relationship unless you want to. But if she's more into a physical relationship than anything, then I wouldn't continue that relationship. I mean, what's the point of making out and whatnot if you don't actually have true feelings for the other person?"

"Right? I tried to talk to my other friends about me and Zatanna, but they don't understand the problem at all!"

I raised an eyebrow.

"Do your other friends happen to be guys?"

"...yeah."

I snorted and placed an arm around his shoulders.

"Look, I don't want to slam your friends, but they're teenage boys, honey, and most of them aren't mature enough to see from your stance."

He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

"I know. I guess its just because I'm sensitive about stuff like that."

"That isn't a bad thing, Dick. Just be careful with expressing your feelings to people who don't understand."

"You have a lot of experience with that, don't you? I mean, you're so nice and caring, but if I didn't know you, I would have been so intimidated by you."

"I was always told that my kindness was a weakness, so I learned the hard way to conceal my feelings. But it isn't-it keeps me grounded. You learn that you can't be an open book to everyone, but you don't exactly harden your heart...You just become more reserved."

He nodded and smiled at me.

"Thanks for understanding."

I ruffled his hair and grinned.

"Hey, it takes a lot to hold it in, but even more to let it out. You'll make the right decisions."

I looked at the dirty plates and sighed.

"Now let's get to work."

After we cleaned the kitchen, Dick and I decided to watch a movie after we headed upstairs to change into our pajamas. I made us some popcorn and waited for Dick in the living room, and I began to eat some vanilla ice cream that was unopened in the freezer.

Dick laughed when he found me sitting on the floor with a huge bowl of ice cream and Oreo cookies, and shook his head.

"How can you eat so much without becoming obese?"

I smirked.

"It's my superpower."

He sat next to me and grabbed my spoon, and sure enough, he began to eat my dessert. I didn't really mind sharing, so we took turns eating the ice cream.

As I grabbed the spoon and began to scoop some ice cream, he looked over at me and shrugged.

"Do you still want to watch the movie, or do you want to just hang out?"

"It doesn't really matter as long as I can still finish my dessert."

He grinned and patted my stomach as I ate without shame.

"You have a stomach of steel, Debs. I tip my hat off to you."

I tried to laugh at his comment, but I ended up choking on an Oreo cookie. He cackled and hit my back as I did my best to swallow. After what seemed like an hour, I was able to get the cookie down my throat successfully. I glared at Dick as he laughed his butt off at my ungraceful incident, and I pointed at him accusingly.

"Not cool, man."

He sat up and wiped his eyes.

"That-" snort, "was hilarious!"

He looked at me and began to laugh again.

"You looked like a freaking turkey!"

He rolled on the floor having a laugh attack, and I rolled my eyes.

"Hardy har har. You shouldn't be one to talk, I totally heard you fart right now."

He laughed even harder, and I couldn't help but laugh as well.

"Hey, when I fart, I toot, and it is adorable!"

I scoffed.

"Yeah right, it was like you set off a nuclear bomb down here, Grayson!"

We both ended up laughing so hard that we managed to knock the popcorn off the table, which landed all over our bowl of ice cream.

"Awh, man!"

I snickered as I got up to put the bowl in the kitchen sink.

"It was fate telling us that we need to stop pigging out or we'll die."

I walked back into the living room plopped myself on the couch where Dick was seated as well.

He laid himself down and used my lap as a pillow for his head, and sighed.

"You should meet my team, Debs. They'll love you when they meet you. You can have an eating contest with Wally and put him to shame."

I smiled down at him and tilted my head.

"I'll visit you guys if Bruce lets me."

"It's about time. You've been here for like, what, five weeks?"

"Yup."

"Well once you get your suit, you have to come with me to Mount Justice. You have no option, my lady."

"Your wish is my command, master."

"You can give us combat training and everything. They'll freak out once they see how BA you are."

"Right."

He lifted his head up and propped it up with his fists.

"I'm serious."

"If you think I'm tough, you should meet some of my old pals from SPYRAL. They make me look like a pansy."

He snickered and shook his head.

"Nobody uses the word 'pansy' , Debs."

"Well I just did. Nobody takes the prefixes out of words to make them sound cool."

"I do, and that makes me a trendsetter."

"Sure, Grayson."

"Ha. Ha. So tell me about your friends. Are they children of deadly assassins too?"

"Not all of them. Some were normal people, and some had some crazy background like me."

"Well tell me all about them, then."

I thought for a bit before speaking.

"There were six of us. Will, Frankie, Marlowe, Ben, Reese and I. Will was our team leader, and even though he wasn't much older than me, he was the maturest out of all of us. He was like 6'3 with curly blonde hair and ice blue eyes, and he was definitely someone who was admirable and trustworthy. He saved my sorry butt so many times, and truly was a great leader. The fact that he was from New Zealand made him more intimidating for some reason. But he was very kind, and is someone that I know I can count on to this day."

Before I could have continued talking about my team, Dick spoke up.

"How old is he now?"

"Well he's three and a half years older than me, so he should be twenty one right now."

"He's younger than I thought...Continue, continue."

I raised an eyebrow in question to what he just said, but I decided to ignore his comment and continue to talk.

"Who did I say in order again? Will, Fran- oh, that's right, Frankie. Well, Frankie was the most obnoxious one out of all of us, all brawn and no brain. Hehe, just kidding. Uh, let's see, how should I describe him? He was from New York and had a Yankee accent, with brown hair and brown eyes, and he was an expert marksman. He loved his snipers more than his own life, and he was such a wisecrack. Even though he was pretty irritating at times, he was like a big brother to me with a face that only a mother could love."

We both laughed at my comment, and I sighed.

"He's twenty-three right now, if I'm correct. I think it was his birthday like six days ago, actually. Well anyways, there was Will, Frankie, and oh my gosh-Marlowe. Marlowe was 5'1 with a LOT of spunk, and was definitely the toughest out of all of us-even Will. She had the side of her head shaved off and her blonde hair was dyed red at the tips, and she wore a ton of eye makeup around her green eyes. She was an expert with explosives and always loved to pick a fight with Frankie. It's a surprise that they haven't killed each other. She's twenty-one now, and was from Detroit...man, I miss her."

I looked at Dick and began to laugh.

"The first time I met Marlowe, she hated me so much since I was the new addition to the team. She was the only girl, and when she found out that we were roommates, she nearly had a tantrum. She said that I grew on her, and we became the closest of friends since."

Dick sat up and stared at me curiously.

"Have you contacted her recently?"

I shook my head.

"I haven't talked with any of them in over six months."

He frowned.

"That's not good."

"I know...Well. Where was I?"

"Will, Frankie, Marlowe.."

"Ben! Ben was our hacker and tech expert, and was the youngest out of all of the guys. He was a short, scrawny Brit with fuzzy brown hair and brown eyes, and he was an absolute genius. We went on a mission to protect a royal family in Cairo in 2011, and one of the buildings near us was rigged with explosives. Ben was unfortunately near the building and lost his legs from the explosion. He still served as a valuable surveillance member on our team, though. I think he's nineteen now...he's three months older than me."

"The last member on our team was Reese, our stealthiest member on the team. He was a master of disguise and was an expert on breaking in and out of buildings unnoticed. He was tall and looked like a track star with his slim build and everything. He had black hair and blue eyes, and was a cool person to be with. He flirted with me a lot until he finally met his girlfriend Lily, who sadly died in a car crash...Poor guy hasn't been the same since. He's twenty-one right now."

I smiled sadly and looked back at Dick, who was staring at me intently.

"Well, I feel like we've talked enough about that, so how about we watch a movie?"

He nodded and got up to put a random disk in the DVD player.

"I might fall asleep on you, Debs. I'm beginning to feel kind of tired."

I looked up at him in concern as he sat back down on the couch.

"Do you want to go back to your room to sleep? I'm totally cool with staying here by myself, you know."

He shook his head and rested it back on my lap before responding.

"Nah, I'm good. I like being here, anyways."

I stared at him hesitantly before responding.

"Alright."

The movie was halfway done when I got up to pee in the bathroom upstairs so that I could get some blankets from the closet as well. As I grabbed two snug blankets from the closet, I heard a small cry of despair. Knowing that no one else could have heard the cry, I threw the blankets over my shoulders and ran downstairs as fast as I could.

I found Dick thrashing in his sleep as he whimpered something that I couldn't understand.

I slowly made my way towards him and placed the blankets on the table, and placed my hand on his shoulder.

"Dick? Wake up, sweetie, it's just a nightmare."

His eyes opened, and he trembled as I crouched down to make eye contact with him.

"D-Debs?"

My heart broke when I saw the fear in his eyes, and I cupped his cheek as I nodded.

"Hey, it's okay. It was just a nightmare."

He sat up and stared at me with tears in his eyes as I sat down and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders.

He laid his head in my lap as I wrapped my arm protectively around him, and I thought about what could have scared him so bad.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He shook his head furiously, and I sighed. It was worse than I thought.

"I'm here now, okay? You can go to sleep, Dick. You know that I'll take care of you."

He sniffled as he turned himself over to hug my waist like a child grabbing his teddy bear.

"I-I know."

I smiled at his gesture, and relaxed a bit after I heard his soft snoring. He was going to be okay. Whatever scared him-it was a past memory. I've seen that look in his eyes too many times, even from my own. But he was okay now, and that was all that mattered.

My little bird with the big blue eyes was going to be alright.


	4. Ch 4-To New Beginnings

**Why, two chapters in less than 24 hours?! That's right, I'm on fire! Hah, just kidding. I would be if this chapter was a tad bit longer, but its short and simple. I'm having a blast while writing this story, since I've been coming up with a TON of new ideas for it. **  
><strong> Deborah WILL be meeting the team soon, which is going to be awesome. Can you imagine the team's reactions when they meet her? <strong>  
><strong>strong Oh, and before you guys ask later on, Deborah will have some romance with a very special person. I REPEAT, Deborah WILL have some ROMANCE, baby! Yesss. Heads up though, it won't happen for a good amount of time, since I want her to settle down with her new lifestyle and friends and everything. Can you guys guess who it is? PM me or leave a review if you think you can, and feel free to give me some input! I'd love to hear from you guys, and it would be AWESOME if ya'll can help me come up with the team's reactions when they meet Deborah. Well, I guess I'll leave you guys to it then! I hope you<strong> **enjoy. :)**

I exhaled sharply as I brought my fist to the punching bag, thrusting my left hip to propel myself forward.

Memories of the past flashed vividly through my mind as I clobbered the punching bag mercilessly, feeling the friction rise in my bare hands. The voices of Ra's and Nyssa's distorted into one, yelling, "Traitor!". The sound of my muffled screams as I was tortured for the first time. Ben's unconscious body lying on the ground. Will's arms around me after he rescued me for the last time.

Tears flooded my eyes, and instead of wiping them away from my eyes, I pounded my right fist right through the punching bag, the sand falling all over the mat.

I sighed and climbed up to release the bag and chain from the ceiling, and rolled to the side as it came crashing down.

Instead of grabbing a broom to sweep the sand off the mat, I just rolled up the mat and carried it to the backyard, where I dumped everything out. It took a while since the punching bag was filled with 175 pounds of sand, and I had to even it out on the grass.

After I threw the empty sack in the trash and put the mat back in the training room, I went into my room to shower. I sighed contentedly as I walked in to see everything in place and with decorations, since it took me over a week to decide how I wanted to decorate it.

I decorated my room to make it look like a forest, with deep green walls and mahogany drawers and wooden decors. I left my bedsheets and pillows to be pearly white, since I liked the contrast between the colors. All in all, it looked pretty amazing.

I showered for a good amount of time, since I decided to take the time to use some coconut body wash and moroccan oil for my hair. As I put a warm white bathrobe on, I studied myself in the mirror. Most of my features contrasted to my crystal grey eyes, from my arched eyebrows and high cheekbones to my skin tone that has turned back to olive. I guess that was just a result from me being ½ American, ¼ Russian, and a ¼ Egyptian.

I walked into my bedroom closet and decided to actually wear something decent for once, meaning no more sweats. I settled to wearing a green longsleeve since it was cold outside, and a pair of light blue skinny jeans with tan booties.

As I walked back out to my bedroom, I examined my outfit. Yes, I was self conscious about my appearance. But isn't every girl like that?

I placed my hands on my hips and stared at my complexion. I certainly didn't have a thin ballerina figure, nor I was short and petite. Even though I had a normal breast size, my long, slender neck and collarbone made them look bigger than they actually were. I had a naturally small waist thanks to my mom, and I had wide hips and thick legs from vigorous workouts. I thought that the only thing that seemed kind of off about me other than my gray eyes was my height. I was huge, like really, really tall. 5'10 to be exact. Oy, vey.

After checking myself out in the mirror (that sounded so awkward), I sat down in a chair and pulled it to my beauty drawer. As I blow-dried my hair, I stared at the bottles and containers of makeup that I had. If there was one thing that my mother rubbed off on me, it was knowing how to glam myself up. It's not that I was a makeup haul or anything, but it reminded me of the few pleasant moments that I actually had with her.

As I put foundation on, I fondly remembered the times where my mother would caress my face as she applied my makeup on. Even though she hurt me so many times, I still loved her. I knew it was stupid of me to forgive her for all that she had done to me, but I couldn't hate her. I never would.

I felt tears in my eyes yet again, and I quickly blinked them away.

"Oh, bother."

After I finished applying my makeup on, I smiled at the outcome. I wasn't stuck up or anything, but I was proud of who I was. I struggled with accepting myself when I was younger like any normal teenage girl, but I learned to love my flaws. My awkward height and everything too.

I looked at the mahogany owl clock on the wall and saw that it was barely 5:14 in the morning. Great, just great.

I looked back at my bed and remembered that I placed the folder that Bruce gave me in the drawer nearby. I had to give him my answer on Monday morning, which was tomorrow. I sighed and plopped myself on my bed as I got a pen and the folder out from the drawer, and put the sd card on top of one of the books I had lying around. I would dig into that later.

The folder had my passport, credit card, and two pairs of keys-one for the Wayne Manor, and the other for my white Audi R8. That's right, this girl got herself a hot set of wheels.

I read the first three pages of the folder that was about my new identity. Apparently, my parents were Tony and Elizabeth Lloyd, who were both Romani as well. I was their only child and was sent to different boarding schools most of my life, and they owned a high-class restaurant in Chicago named Romani's. Elizabeth died while giving birth to her dead child, and Tony died four years later of lung cancer. I was around seventeen when Tony died, and I stayed with Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson privately until Bruce announced to the press that he had taken me in.

I raised my eyebrows when I finished reading my "biography" and smiled. Bruce, you are a genius.

After exactly half an hour, I was able to select the classes that I would take in Gotham University. I had to take General Ed, but I decided that I wanted to major in Sociology. I wanted to find a way to improve life for the citizens of Gotham, and I felt that it was the right fit for me.

I got up from my bed and grabbed my forms as I headed downstairs, and couldn't help but grin. I was finally making proper decisions for myself, and I was proud. I have been pretty proud of myself lately, which felt odd in a pleasant way.

I went into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of red wine, and served myself a not-very-modest portion in my glass. I knew that I was still under age, but it wasn't like I could have gotten drunk or anything-my healing factor prohibited me from that.

I sighed as I held my glass in the air, imagining that my friends were with me right now.

"To new beginnings!"


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey, you guys! I'm back with this action packed, sass mouthing, fart producing chapter! Literally. New characters are introduced, some from the DC universe, and some OCs as well. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter just as much as I did, and I hope to hear from y'all soon. :)**

** *DISCLAIMER* I sadly don't own the DC universe or its characters, so I just own one awkwardly tall eighteen year old and her weird friends.**

One month later...

"You're going to try harder, Richie!"

"Whatever, _Debby_!"

I laughed as I blocked Dick's roundhouse kick by grabbing his foot in the air with my left hand, and gently tossed him to the side. We've been sparring the past couple of days together in the Batcave, and by Bruce's orders, we were to stay put until he came for us.

We were currently messing with each other-in other words, Dick was dancing in circles around me while I tossed him around for my amusement.

I snickered as Dick got up from the mat with his hair disheveled, but frowned when I saw him flinch as he grabbed his right rib.

I ran towards him and grabbed his shoulder.

"Oh my gosh, are you okay?"

I looked at him in his eyes, and he smirked before jumping on my back.

"Gotcha!"

I rolled my eyes as he cackled.

"Hardy har har. Can you get off my back now?"

"Nah, I'm good."

I was about to land on my back on the floor when I felt a presence watching us. I turned around, and sure enough, there stood the Batman.

Dick quickly got off my back and stood next to me, and we waited for Bruce to speak.

"Suit up-both of you."

Dick responded before I could.

"Her suit's here already?"

"Yes. Now suit up."

I nodded and smiled at Dick when Bruce turned his back on us. He grinned and high fived me before dragging me with him to the side of the Batcave where the suits were kept.

The suit was perfect for me. I knew Wayne knew what he was doing, but shoot. Creating vigilante suits must have been his superpower.

I was wearing a dense kevlar body suit that was currently an ash gray- it changes depending on the time of day. I wore black boots with foot spikes and knee pads that were light and efficient, since I wasn't a fan of heavy armor. I had a black manriki chain around my waist, and I wore black gloves that had retractable six-inch steel claws for close combat. To finish my signature look, I had made a custom visor that I wore over my black domino mask. It covered my entire face and was created to look like a wolf's face, with being black and gray for the most part, and turned my eyes to a yellow glow. The lenses had special visions like night vision, heat sensors, and ultraviolet visions, and it had a comm link on the left ear of the mask. All in all, I was quite pleased with my decision to use the depiction of a wolf for my identity. I had been having so many dreams about them lately, and even though I'm not very superstitious, I believe that they had a sentimental value for me. I still couldn't understand why I dreamed of them, but I appreciated the fact that they weren't nightmares at all. They gave me security.

I looked over at Robin as I tied my hair up into a high ponytail, and spoke to both him and Batman.

"I'm ready."

I was currently on top of an old apartment building with Batman and Robin as Batman planned our patrol for the night.

I stood on the edge of the roof as I spoke to both of the heroes, the heels of my boots balancing themselves as the tips of my feet were in the open.

"I already memorized the majority of Gotham's streets, so I don't think that I will lose my way if you were already wondering."

Robin looked over at me with an appalled look on his masked face as Batman nodded once.

"How?"

Batman answered before I could have.

"Her photographic memory."

"Ohhh."  
>I grinned behind my visor and turned to face them.<p>

"I really don't mind going on my own. I already studied everything I need to know about the schizoid criminals on the streets, and I have my comm set up. If I'm stuck in a rut, I'll be sure to contact the both of you."

Batman gave me a blank expression that lasted ten seconds before responding.

"You can go on your own for now. But if you run into someone like the Joker or Scarecrow, be sure to call us in before you engage or you can forget being on your own on patrol. Am I clear?"

Even though his tone of voice intimidated me, I nodded calmly and made sure that I hadn't tensed up. I learned the hard way to not give any hint of weakness to anyone, no matter how strong or manipulative they were. I respected Bruce, and he knew that, but there was no way that I would ever truly fear him.

"You can take the south side of Gotham and meet us back here in four hours. I already told Commissioner Gordon that you were with us, so you shouldn't face any conflict with the GCPD."

He turned away from me, and Robin followed as Batman leaped off the roof with his cape stretching out to its impressive size. He flipped off the rooftop to the next before shouting,

"See you later, Shadow Wolf!"

I saluted him and shook my head as I made my way to the south side of the city. I had to get used to that name, for sure.

By the time I was twenty-seven minutes on my own, I had already encountered a group of thugs feeling a teenage girl up in an alley. There were four men in total- one black, two hispanics, and one white. As I quietly ran over there, I saw that they were all at least 5'8 and were armed with cheap pocket knives and old revolvers. The girl was around fifteen years old and was dressed in school clothes, and was surprisingly putting up a fight.

She managed to knock one the guns away from her face but failed to notice a knife headed towards her abdomen. I rushed into the fight and didn't have time to see the shocked look on the men's faces when I crushed the man's hand that was holding the knife with my right hand.

As I grabbed his fist, I twisted his arm in an uncomfortable hold and thrusted him into the wall and struck him hard enough on the head to knock him out. I turned to the other three and cuffed the white man's shoulder with my left claw as he charged towards me, and sidestepped to the left as I saw the black man reaching for his gun. I slugged the white man in the nose, and was satisfied when I heard the sound of his cartilage being shattered. I turned to the remaining two and decided to finish them off quickly, so I disarmed the black man by getting out of the path of the bullet and moving to the side in order to grab his right shoulder and flip him over to the ground. I kicked him in the groin to make sure that he wouldn't be getting up soon, and finished the last man off by reverse backheel kicking him so hard he literally 'took a bow' before knocking out.

I tied the four men up before looking over my shoulder to see if the younger teen was alright. She was surprisingly staring at me with curious blue eyes as I stood up and faced her.

"Are you mute?"

I was taken back by her comment and responded a little more quickly than I wanted to, making sure that my voice was monotone.

"No, what makes you think that?"

She grinned and shrugged.

"You hadn't made a noise the entire time you fought those jerks, so I thought that you were mute."

I nodded as I stood up and placed my chain around my waist.

"You fight pretty amazing, you know."

I smiled at the girl's talkative personality and decided to respond since I knew that she couldn't see my face.

"You seem like you know a thing or two yourself."

She shrugged and pulled a strand of her red hair.

"Yeah, well I would have been seriously hurt if you hadn't come. Thanks, by the way."

"You're welcome. Can you do me a favor and call the GCPD for me?"

"Sure thing. My dad is going to be so worried once he finds out what happened...So you're new to Gotham, aren't you?"

I looked over at the four men tied together, and watched them as I responded.

"You can say that."

The white man caught my gaze and looked away when I glared at him. At least he wasn't stupid enough to cause trouble again.

"Okay, the police should be here any second."

Since I didn't want to leave the girl alone with the buffoons, I leaned against the brick wall and looked down at her.

"So why were you out alone at this time of night?"

She pointed to a duffel bag lying on the floor and smiled sheepishly.

"I stayed for a bit at the gym after my karate class. I didn't have a ride home so I decided to walk."

"Ahh."

"I know, it was a stupid decision. I could have been dead right now…"

It seemed like reality just hit the young girl hard, and she tried her best to keep herself composed.

I placed my hand on her shoulder and she looked up at me with tears filling her eyes.

"But you aren't. Let this be a lesson for you to remember, okay kid?"

She nodded and quickly blinked the tears away from her eyes.

"I'm Barbara, by the way. But I bet that you can't tell me your name, right? The whole vigilante thing prevents you from giving that information."

"Right."

"Do you work with Batman and Robin?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Awesome."

I was about to respond until I heard the sound of some cars coming our way, and I walked towards the tied up men.

"Alrighty then. Its time to get you guys to the slammer."

Before they could respond, I dragged them by one of the white man's foot and brought them to the front of the alley.

"You behind me, Barbara?"  
>"Yeah."<p>

"Good."

The man with the broken nose groaned as I pulled them to a halt, and I chuckled when Barbara told him to shut up.

"Are you sure they're here? Maybe they're still on their way."

"They're here alright. In like twenty seconds, to be exact."

Barbara stared at me quizzically but stayed quiet until I was able to prove my word. Two GCPD cars parked right beside us, and I turned to Barbara.

"I should get going now. You think that you can explain this for me?"

She didn't have the time to respond since she was quickly wrapped in someone's arms, by Commissioner Gordon himself.

I recognized Gordon from the files that I read in the Batcave, as well as the officer that came with him. Officer Montoya was handcuffing the men and shoving them into the van, and the Commissioner was staring at me with a look of gratitude.

"Thank you for saving my daughter, ma'am."

I looked at the both of them and inclined my head.

"I'm glad I was able to come in time. Well, I should get going. You keep yourself off the streets at this time of night, alright kid?"

She nodded, and just as I was turning around, Commissioner Gordon spoke up.

"Wait! Are you partnering with Batman and Robin? I just want to know so that I can assure you that there won't be any conflict arising."

"Yes, sir."

Barbara tilted her head and crossed her arms.

"So what are we supposed to call you?"

I looked at the two officers and the young girl, and walked back into the alley.

"Shadow Wolf."

I felt that their eyes were still on me as I decided to find a way to disappear from here. I didn't have any grappling hooks or smoke bombs, so I had to get a running head start from the front of the alley, and I ran towards the back. I jumped on top of the trashcans and leaped to the top of one of the buildings, and when I landed on the roof, I tumbled myself forward and continued to run across the city heights. I didn't look back, since I knew that my job there was done, and there was still a lot of work left to do.

"So how did patrol go?"

I looked over at Dick as we rode in the Batmobile, and smiled widely.

"It went pretty smooth actually. I expected there to be some conflict, but there actually wasn't. I even met Commissioner Gordon's daughter and everything."  
>"Barbara?! Is she okay now? What happened?"<p>

I looked at Bruce, who simply responded in a monotone voice.

"One of his best friends."

"Ah. Well, Barbara is doing fine, Dick. She just made an unwise decision and almost paid the price along the way."

I looked back at Dick and smiled when I saw his face lose it's tension, his sharp jawline relaxing.

"I like her. She's very open and really, really talkative."

"That's Barbara alright."

I laughed and turned to Bruce, who was currently driving the Batmobile into the Batcave.

"I forgot to tell you, but I talked with Alfred about giving Dick a ride to and from school. Are you alright with me doing that?"

"I am."

Bruce looked at Dick with an indescribable look on his face, and I did my best to compose myself as Dick looked like he wanted to die.

"Did she ask you?"

"No."

"Then respond only when you are addressed, you hear?"

"Yes, sir."

There was an unnecessary period of silence before Bruce finally responded.

"I am alright with it as long as it doesn't interfere with your schedule at school."

"It doesn't."

"Then you have my consent."

"Thank you, Bruce."

"Now get of my car-both of you."

_**Five hours later**_

"Dick, you ready?"

"Coming!"

I grinned as Alfred cleared my plate for me on the kitchen table, and grabbed my car keys and Prada bag from the mahogany countertop.

"Thank you, Alfred."

"You're very welcome, Miss Deborah."

I got out of my seat and walked to the entrance to the Manor, making sure that my black skirt wasn't riding up. I had to wear Gotham University's mandatory uniform, which consisted a white button up blouse with a black skirt and since I was a freshman, a yellow tie. I wore a black GU blazer on top since it was chilly outside and some black leggings with black oxford shoes.

"I'll meet you at the front gate, Dick!"

"Wait, I'm coming down already!"

I sighed and smiled as Dick came running down the stairs with his messenger bag slung around his neck and his left shoe in his hand.

"Well, isn't that a sight."

"Yeah, yeah."

I chuckled and waved back at Alfred as Dick was putting his shoe back on his foot.

"We'll see you later, Alfred! Have a nice day!"

"You too, young ones!"

We walked to my car, and I looked over at Dick who was now fully clothed and had his bag around his back.

"You ready?"  
>"Ready for another agonizing year at school, or ready for the millions of questions that people are going to bombard me with that are about you?"<p>

"Err, both."

"Yeah, I guess."

He tilted his head and grinned.

"I'm pretty sure that they'll believe anything I say, though. I mean, we kind of actually look like cousins."

"You think so?"  
>"We both have tan skin, black hair, and colored eyes, so yeah. Well, there's the fact that you're two inches taller than me, but I'm a growing boy!"<p>

I laughed as I got in the car, and started the engine.

"Let's hope you're right."

I drove out of the driveway and onto the road, and saw that Dick was on his phone texting someone. I looked over at the clock and saw that we were twenty minutes early, meaning that we had enough time to go to a coffee shop or somewhere.

"Hey Debs, since we're early and everything, do you think we can give my friend a ride to school?"

I wasn't surprised and nodded.

"Sure, just put the coordinates in the car. Who's your friend?"

"Barbara."

I grinned as I followed the first direction on the GPS.

"Really, now?"

"Awh, man. What are you thinking now?"

I looked over at Dick and shrugged.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"_Right._"

I chuckled and swerved to the left on the wheel.

"I just think that she's a curious young girl, that's all."

"You promise?"  
>"Yes, I promise. Wait, what else would I be thinking about?"<p>

I raised an eyebrow at the younger teen and he raised his hands in the air and shook his head.

"I don't know, I was wrong."

I stared at him for a few seconds before breaking out into a wide grin.

"Ohhh, I know what you thought I was thinking."

He shook his head frantically as I continued.

"You thought that I liked her for you, huh? That I was trying to play matchmaker with the both of you."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, for the love of- Oh, shoot she's coming. Okay, we're going to talk about this later."

"Just because Zatanna and I broke up doesn't mean that-heyyy, Barbara!"

The pretty redhead opened the back door of the car and smiled to the both of us, seeming surprised to see me. I couldn't really blame her, since I would have probably had the same reaction if a stranger was giving me a ride to school.

"Hey, Dick."

I turned around and smiled widely at her before winking at Dick, who was trying his best to keep his cool.

"Hi, Barbara! I'm Deborah, Dick's cousin. It's so nice to finally meet you."

She looked at Dick, and then back at me before responding with a smile.

"Hi, Deborah! I heard about you on the news last night. I never knew that you have been staying with Bruce Wayne for about a year already."

She gave an annoyed look at my 'cousin' and rolled her eyes.

"I would have expected Dick to have told me about you, but nooo."

Dick looked back at me with a pleading look in his eyes as I started the car again, so I decided to save him from his misery.

"I actually asked him to keep it a secret for me. I didn't want to face the public for a while since I was still handling my father's death...But I'm doing great now."

I looked over at Dick and nudged his shoulder.

"I've got this blockhead as my family now."

He grinned back at me with his pearly whites, and I never really noticed how handsome he truly was until then. I was proud of being his fake cousin, even though that sounded pretty weird.

I broke out of my thoughts when Barbara spoke up with her clear, silvery voice.

"I'm so sorry about your father...and your mother."

I looked back at the girl, and even though I hated lying, I knew that I had no other choice than to accept her sympathy with gratitude.

"Thank you."

Dick cleared his throat and turned back to Barbara.

"So did you know that Deborah was a model?"

I gave Dick an 'are you freaking kidding me?' look as Barbara raised her eyebrows at me, and Dick shot me a look that said 'Let's see if you can get out of this one.'

I forcefully nodded my head and swerved to the right rather roughly.

"My modeling career didn't last very long, though."

Barbara looked at me curiously as Dick snickered without discreet.

"Really? Why not?"

I laughed heartily before winking at Dick, who seemed taken aback that I wasn't nervous about lying. Truth is, I wasn't.

"I love food too much-"

Dick cut in and nodded his head vigorously at Barbara as he pointed at me.

"It's true! She really does."

"-aaand because I didn't really like the pressure that I was receiving from people who told me that I had to look a certain way in order to meet their standards. Not cool."

"Good for you, then! I hate how so many people these days are too involved with making themselves someone they aren't. It bugs me so much! Hey, you're wearing Gotham University uniform! You're attending there?"

I nodded and looked at Barbara through the mirror.

"Yes, ma'am."  
>"What are you majoring in?"<p>

"Sociology. It's barely my first year though."

"That's awesome! Gotham could use more people who are involved in making the city a safer and better place. That is, if you decide to stay in Gotham."

"I'd definitely don't mind staying here, but I'm just frightened of all the lunatics running amok at night."

She grinned and leaned forward in her seat.

"That's why we have Batman and Robin, and even more, Shadow Wolf."  
>I raised my eyebrows at Dick, who was smirking, and looked back at her.<p>

"I've heard of Batman and Robin, but I haven't heard of Shadow Wolf. Is he a new hero in Gotham?"

"_She_ is. In fact, I even met her last night when I was almost killed by a group of thugs in an alley."  
>I tried not to laugh at the fact that she just blurted that out so freely, and especially in front of someone that she just met. Before I even had time to react, Dick decided to play the over reactor and whipped his head to the back seat.<p>

"You were almost killed?! Are you an idiot?!"

I gave Barbara a worried look as she looked like she wanted to kill Dick then, her icy blue eyes looking like a storm.

"Hey, I know that I made a dumb mistake, but geesh, don't yell at me like that! You're not my mom!"

"Well why would you make such a stupid mistake? You've never been that dumb!"

"I never have and never will, Grayson! So why don't you just stop acting like there's a stick in your-"

"Don't go there, Barbara!"

"Why not? You made no hesitation to call me out on my stupidity, which was by the way idiotic!"

"Stop PMSing! I didn't mean it like that!"

"I'll stop when you stop, you nimrod!"

I smirked when I heard Barbara's choice of words to insult Dick, and even though I felt really awkward since I was stuck in the crossfire between the two teens, I had to admit that Barbara was definitely a spitfire. They continued to argue and I sighed in relief when we arrived at Gotham High.

"Soo, we're here. Barbara, do you have a ride home?"

She glared at Dick before looking at me and shook her head sheepishly.

"I'll give you a ride home then. Meet me here with Dick at 3:15 sharp."

I gave both of them a stern look as I unlocked the doors.

"Now Barbara, I know that this is your first time meeting me, so I'll let you know now that I don't tolerate any fighting. Both of you better make up before I pick you guys up, you hear? We'll go out afterwards to celebrate and everything."

Dick rolled his eyes, and I cuffed the back of his head lightly.

"Ow!"

"_You hear?"_

"Alright, alright!"

I smiled as they got out of the car, and nodded my head.

"It was nice meeting you, Barbara! I'll see you guys at 3:15, then!"

"Bye, Deborah!"

Dick waved at me, seeming to have gotten over the fact that I hit him roughly on the head. Well, he deserved it. Either way, he was a good kid and seemed to have gotten back to his senses. He turned to Barbara and seemed to have been apologizing since his posture was relaxed as he stood, and as I drove away from the school, I smiled when I saw Dick hug a tense Barbara through my rearview mirror.

It took me less than five minutes to arrive in Gotham University since it wasn't too far, and I luckily had my own parking space thanks to Bruce. As I locked my car and walked towards the entrance, I stared at the other students around me. They were all wearing similar outfits like mine and had perfect hair and teeth, like if they all had the same stylists. They probably did for all I knew.

Even though I was trained to adapt to different situations, I was nervous about my first day at the university. The past three years were the most difficult for me, since I had to learn to socialize more with people and remember that I was not an assassin anymore. I learned to love being with people, which was something that was stripped away from me when I was born, but I still had my moments where I just wanted to run from human contact out of fear. This happened to be one of those moments.

As I entered the school premises, I was almost immediately greeted by many different clubs, and I did my best to hide from the overly eager students that were supposed to show you your classes and become your best friend in five minutes. I quickly grabbed my schedule and turned the opposite way from all the other students and decided to find the classes on my own, and was relieved when I was able to ditch the herd of freshmen.

Just when I was about to sigh in relief, I heard footsteps coming my way, from maybe three or four people.

"Hey, wait up!"

_Gahh! _I mentally slapped myself as I paused and turned to face the people who were calling me. _Please don't be some snobs who dry clean their underwear._

I wasn't surprised to see a group of freshman coming my way, all girls too. There was a short, thin girl with big brown eyes and brown hair in a ponytail, a girl with tan skin and voluminous black hair, and a tall Asian with her hair in a fishtail braid.

The girl with the ponytail waved as they walked up to me, and I smiled forcefully at them.

"Hi Deborah! I'm Olivia, and this is-" she pointed to the tan girl "-Nadia and-" Nadia pointed to the Asian "-Megan."

I raised an eyebrow at them and nodded. How did they know my name? Did Bruce set this up? Did he not trust me on making new friends? I cleared my throat and decided to find out if my suspicions were true.

"Hello Olivia, Nadia, and Megan, is it? Right. Um, quick question. How do you know my name?"

Olivia smiled as Nadia and Megan snickered.

"I heard about you on the news last night! I was eating some grapes in the living room when I got bored and decided to watch some TV so I turned it on, and there you were! And I was all like, 'I have to meet this girl!' so I called Nadia and Megan and the rest of my friends who aren't here right now and told them that we had to find you here and welcome you to Gotham U even though its also our first day here."

My lips tilted as Nadia rolled her eyes and grabbed Olivia's shoulders.

"She woke us up at 3 AM with that phone call! Please excuse her excessive talking and fangirling. She was just really excited to meet you."

"Well it was nice to meet all of you."

I looked at my schedule and sighed.

"Do you want to check if any of us got classes together?"

Olivia's eyes lit up as she took the slip of paper in my hands and compared it with theirs.

Nadia looked over her shoulder and tilted her head.

"Alright, it looks like you have Math 104 with Megan, which is basically like the next step to Calculus, and Biology with me...Oh! You got Literature with Liv and Megan, and Social Studies with me. We should meet up with our other friends and see if you got some classes with them too. We have to go to our first lecture right now anyways, so do you wanna come with us?"

I hesitated as the three girls stared at me, waiting for a response. I wanted to steer away from everyone and go my own way, but I knew that I had to make friends at one point. Besides, these girls seemed nice and didn't seem like they dry-cleaned their underwear.

"Sure."

Olivia smiled widely and gave me back my schedule.

"Great!"

It took us exactly seven minutes to reach the first lecture hall, and the girls promised me that they would sit next to me and present me to their friends. We actually arrived there early, since there were only twenty people there, and the professor wasn't even in the room yet.

I tilted my head and looked at the three of them curiously.

"So what's your backstories? I'm pretty sure that you all know mine by now."

Olivia spoke up first before anyone else could.

"Right, and I'm so sorry for your loss. But it's great to know that you have your cousin and Mr. Wayne."

"Thanks, and I know. They're a blessing. Stubborn and sometimes annoying, but a blessing nonetheless."

They laughed and Olivia crossed her legs and placed her hands on her lap, which made her look like a doll. She had a pretty white lace bow in her hair which made her look like Belle from Beauty and the Beast if you asked me.

"Well, my dad owns the Gotham News channel, my mom is an art collector, and I have an older brother named Chase who also goes here."

Nadia grinned and wiggled her eyebrows.

"He's hot, too. Too bad he's taken, though."

Olivia scrunched her button nose and shook her head.

"He's dating some stuck up brat who thinks she's the queen of the universe just because she already has a huge modeling career. Its even worse since she goes here!"

Nadia raised her eyebrow and snapped her finger.

"I told you that I could do something about her, you know. I don't mind whooping her a** for nothing."

"No, please!, no! I didn't mean it like that!"

I grinned and looked at Megan, who was sitting quietly next to Olivia. She was smiling too, and I guessed that she wasn't much of a talker since she hadn't said much the past few minutes. Either that or she was really shy around me, but her posture seemed relaxed, so I knew that she wasn't on guard or anything. She had a round face with warm brown eyes and had an athletic build, and her fishtail braid was neat and perfectly in place.

"What about you, Megan? What's your backstory?"

She looked up at me in surprise and gave me a small smile.

"Well, its just me, my dad, and my grandma. He works with Gotham's Stock Market, and all my grandma does is eat all the food in our house and watch cable."

"I'm pretty sure that your grandma is pretty awesome, then."

Nadia nodded and pointed her manicured finger at her.

"Her grandma is a thug. She even has a pet goose and everything!"

I laughed, and Olivia looked at me with a 'matter of fact' face.

"Her grandma is practically Nadia's idol."

Nadia rolled her amber eyes and tugged on one of her thick curls.

"Right. So now its time for my backstory! My father's in a drug cartel, and my mom was a famous Playboy Bunny."

I stared at her in shock, and she smirked before giving an exaggerated sigh.

"No, I kid with you, darling. My father owns a plantation in Cuba where he grows tobacco and coffee, and my mom never really contacted me after she left me with my Papi. I've been staying in Gotham with my older sister for the past four years, but I always go to the Havana during the summer."

"How exotic."

She smirked and leaned back in her chair, and raised her arms in the air.

"It is paradise!"

I grinned at the girl's fiery attitude, and looked to the front of the classroom when I heard people coming inside. There was a huge group of people coming, like at least eighty people to be exact. They were led by the professor himself as he marched them into the building, which looked quite comedic since he was short and stout and had crazy white hair that Einstein would be jealous of himself.

I looked at Nadia and she shrugged, looking surprised as well. Olivia opened her mouth and was about to speak until someone tugged her ponytail from behind. I looked up to see a group of boys staring down at us... well staring at me. The girls caught their gaze and Olivia stood up in her seat as Nadia snorted.

"Hey guys! You have to meet Deborah."

I looked up at them and waved as a guy with dark brown hair and hazel eyes made his way over to me and bowed.

"I am your humble servant Ryan, my queen."

I raised an eyebrow and Megan nodded her head.

"He does that."

I looked back at Ryan and grinned.

"It's nice to meet you, Ryan."

He took a seat next to me and slung his arm around my seat as he waved to the other guys standing there awkwardly.

"Well, aren't you going to say hi to my queen? Where are your manners?"

A tall, muscular boy with blonde hair and blue eyes sat next to Nadia and smiled at me as the other boy with copper skin and shaggy black hair sat down next to Ryan.

"So you're the reason why I got Olivia shrieking in my ear at three AM last night."

I tilted my lips as he crossed his arms.

"I guess so."

He nodded and stretched his hand out for me to shake it.

"The name's Cyrus. Deborah, right?"

"Right."

The boy with the copper skin waved at me and grinned, which made his face light up with his pearly whites as Cyrus pointed at him.

"That's Johnny."

I waved back at him and was about to compliment his hair until a loud voice erupted behind me.

"Hey, guys! You are all looking so fetch this morning!"

Ryan and Cyrus groaned as Nadia looked at me.

"It's our friend Bobby."

I tried to turn around but Ryan grabbed my shoulders and turned it towards himself.

"Don't turn, or you'll be blinded by it."

"_Ha ha._ Hello everyone, how are you all doing on this fine morning? Hey girls! Nadia, looking so hot as usual. Olivia, you look so adorable that I just want to dunk you in my coffee! And Meegaan, are those lowlights I see? So fab. And you boys look so _handsome _in your uniforms! You look nothing like the delinquents you used to be at the academy! Well, except Ryan. Ooh, is that a new face I see? Ryan, let go of the poor girl!"

He let go of me and I rolled my eyes as I turned to face a chubby boy with curly red hair and curious brown eyes.

"Oh my gosh! It's Deborah Lloyd, the buzz on all of the gossip feeds in Gotham! Girl, you are gor-geous. I would totally go straight for you. Ha, who am I kidding? Of course I wouldn't. But it is so nice to finally meet you!"

I smiled and inclined my head at him as Ryan gagged.

"It's very nice to meet you too, Bobby."

"Oh my gosh, she already knows my name!"

Cyrus rolled his eyes as Ryan scoffed.

"She isn't a toddler, Bobby. Now why don't you leave us to go find your friends, huh?"  
>"Is that hostility that I hear, Ryan? Are you flirting with me?"<p>

Ryan bugged his eyes out as the rest of us laughed at him.

"Eww, gross! Of course not!"

Bobby placed a hand on his hip as he walked away.

"Well if you change your mind, you know where to find me. _Ciao_, my darlings and idiots! I'll see you later!"

We all looked at each other for a couple of moments before Ryan shuddered, and Cyrus and Johnny broke out laughing.

Well this was an interesting morning.

The school day went pretty fast, and before I even knew it, it was already 2:50. I enjoyed spending time with my new friends and got to know them better throughout the day. Olivia was very bubbly and perky, but seemed to know to what extent that each of us could handle. Megan was very calm and was surprisingly team captain of her gymnastics team, and was surprisingly talkative during class. Nadia was loud and sassy, and always had something to say about everything-and I mean everything. Ryan was the prankster, and was apparently almost denied by the university until his mom convinced the school board to accept him. Cyrus was sarcastic and acted like he was a tough guy, which he was. But I knew that he was a softy, and apparently all his other friends knew as well. Johnny was a laid-back and easy going guy who seemed to get along with everybody, and was definitely one of the nicest guys I've met so far.

By the end of the day, I had gotten their numbers and was walked to my car by Olivia since she had to meet up with her brother in the same parking lot. We reached my car and we were currently chatting for a few minutes since her brother hadn't showed up.

"So I really hoped that you enjoyed your first day here with us! I know we're all a handful, but I'm sure that we'll grow on you."

I smiled at the petite girl and tilted my head.

"You already are. I expected this day to go far worse, but it went surprisingly well."

"Same here! I literally prayed last night that Ryan wouldn't do anything stupid. I mean, he did, but nothing out of the ordinary."

I chuckled and ran a hand through my hair.

"He's definitely a handful, isn't he?"

Olivia sighed and leaned against the hood of my car.

"He sure is. He's a great guy, though. He's really sweet once you break that 'bad boy' barrier of his. And his flirtatious side. And his laziness. Well, I can go on and on about his defects, but he is a real softy-even softer than the other guys."

I raised an eyebrow at her but didn't say a word. I can tell that she didn't even know herself that she had feelings for him, so I guessed that no one else knew either. It wasn't like she was swooning over him, but she had a certain softness in her voice that led me to understand that she was fond of him. That the possibility of her falling for him was there.

I broke out of my thoughts when Olivia jumped up and waved her hand in the air.

"Oh look, there's Chasel! Hey Chase, come meet Deborah!"

She looked over to me and grinned.

"Alyssa is going to be so jealous once she sees you! Oh my gosh, I should record her reaction! Don't tell them about this, okay?"

"I'm guessing that Alyssa is his girlfriend?"

Olivia was too busy looking for her phone in her purse to respond, and I stood there awkwardly until she yelled "Eureka!" when she found it.

"Care to answer my question?"

"Oh right! I'm so sorry, I forgot to tell you! Yes, yes she-Hey, Michael! Alyssa."

I lifted my eyes to see a tall, handsome boy (meaning that he was around nineteen years old) with brown hair, a sharp jawline, and bright blue eyes. He had his arm around a blonde's waist who was tall and unnaturally skinny, and she had dramatic blue eyes and pouty lips. A typical model, I guess.

Chase grinned at Olivia, whereas Alyssa gave somewhat of a smile.

"Hey Olive!"

He looked over to me and smiled as he released his arm around his girlfriend's waist to offer his hand to shake.

"Deborah Lloyd, correct?"

I tilted my lips as I shook his hand.

"Correct. I've heard a lot about you from Olivia."

I looked at Alyssa who seemed to be glaring daggers at me, while Chase and Olivia noticed as well. The hostility was great with this one. _Whatever, Courtney._

I decided to be polite and smiled at the blonde.

"The both of you, actually."

Chase nudged her, and she gave me an overly bright smile.

"Good things, I hope."

I shot a look at Olivia, who rolled her eyes, and I laughed.

"Nothing but. You're a model, right?"

"Yes."  
>"That's really impressive. Not everyone has what it takes to look pretty in front of a camera. It's an art, really."<p>

Olivia bit her lip to keep from laughing while Chase looked away as he tried not to smile, and Alyssa was trying to figure out if I meant what I said or not.

Chase decided to change the subject as he unknowingly directed his full attention to me, and not to his girlfriend, who had also noticed.

"You should come over to our place sometime when you can! Olive makes really good chocolate chip cookies, and based on your selection of transportation, I can show you my dad's car collection."

I grinned and Olivia gave me a thumbs up as I responded.

"Sounds like a plan. I'll talk with your sister about it. Well, I should get going now. I have to pick up my cousin and his friend from their school. I'll see you tomorrow, okay Olivia? And it was really nice to meet you both."

Chase nodded and waved as Alyssa firmly placed his hand in hers.

"We'll see you around, Deborah. We should get going too. Let's go, Olive!"

Olivia hugged me around my waist since she was so short and followed her brother and girlfriend to his car.

"Text me later, okay?!"

I opened the car door and waved at her.

"Will do!"

I arrived at Gotham Academy at exactly 3:09, so I parked my car in a safe place before walking over to the front of the school. According to my GPS, there was an ice cream parlor down the street, and I decided to walk with the kids there.

I waited outside and was staring at the huge oak tree in front of me until a loud fart noise came out of my purse, and a couple of people just stared at me in shock.

My eyes widened as I raised my hands in the air.

"I swear that wasn't me."

A chubby black lady who was currently gardening looked me up and down and raised her eyebrows.

"Mmmm-hmmm."

I opened my bag and looked for my phone, which was really hard since I had my tablet, makeup, gum, perfume, pens, hair scrunchies and pins, and some shoelaces (I don't even know how those got in there). I mumbled some insults in Spanish as I was currently playing treasure hunt, and I realized that there was a Hispanic man laughing at my words.

"Sabes lo que estas diciendo, muchachita?"

I looked up at him and responded tersely as another fart noise erupted from my purse.

"Si."

The black woman shook her head as I sighed in relief when I found my stupid phone and shrugged.

"All I understood was something about an elephant."

I growled when I saw the caller I.D, and looked at the other two.

"It's my stupid friend Ryan."

The black woman laughed heartily as she stood up and pointed at me.

"You need to give that boy a good pounding in the head for embarrassing you like that. He loco en la cabeza."

The Hispanic man nodded and looked at the woman.

"You learning Spanish, Betty?"

"Yeah, I got me one of those books that come with a CD and everything."

The two gardeners continued talking as I put my phone on vibrate and called Ryan back.

He let the phone ring for a bit as if he was busy, and finally responded at the last ring.

"_Hello, this is Ryan Sandoval speaking."_

"What the heck, Ryan?!"

*Snicker* "_I'm guessing that you found your little surprise, yes?"_

"No duh, Sherlock. Thanks to you, three or four people now believe that I have a gas problem."

"_Trust me, I've had that before. You know that Indian restaurant on Morrow Street? Yeah, well don't go there. Ever. I had the runs for three days straight. I had to bring extra pants and everything in my trunk."_

I scrunched my nose in disgust and shook my head as the bell rang in the school.

"TMI, dude. Well I gotta go, okay? Thanks for this disturbing chat. I'll be scarred for life thanks to you."

"_Anytime, girl. I'll see you tomorrow. Oh my God, my order of nachos came in and it is looking GLORIOUS! I think I'm in heaven."_

I rolled my eyes and took the phone away from my ear.

"Bye, Ryan."

I hung up and grinned when I saw Dick and Barbara from afar, who were saying goodbye to their friends. They walked over to me, and I put my phone in my purse as I greeted them.

"Hey guys. How was school?"

Dick grinned and crossed his arms.

"It was pretty good. There was a lot of cute freshmen who came up to me to ask for directions."

Barbara smirked as she looked over at me.

"You should have seen him. He was like a fat man at an all-you-can-eat buffet."

I laughed as Dick wiggled his eyebrows, and I slung my purse over my shoulder.

"Well, I parked my car so that we can go walking to the ice cream parlor down the street, if that's okay with the both of you."

Dick and Barbara looked at each other and nodded.

"We're cool with that."

"Good. Now let's get going, shall we? I've been craving pistachio ice cream the entire day."

We walked together on the sidewalk with Dick being the closest to the edge of the street like a true gentleman, me in the middle, and Barbara on my left. I was surprised by how she had already opened up to me as we talked, and I was even more surprised at how intelligent she was.

"So you're a senior already?"

She looked up at me since I was still a bit taller than her and grinned.

"Yup."

"And you're fifteen."

"Yes, ma'am."

"That is outstanding."

Dick stared at the both of us and didn't say a word until I looked back at him.

"What?"

He shook his head and looked away, and I raised an eyebrow at Barbara, who looked confused as well. I furrowed my brow as I looked at the back of his head and thought for a bit until I realized what was up with him. He was jealous.

I sighed and continued staring at the back of his head before I spoke up since there was an awkward silence.

"Boy, do you even know how to brush your hair? It looks like a rat's nest."

Barbara giggled as Dick looked offended.

"Of course I do! And I know your lying, Deborah. My hair looked perfectly fine this morning."

"Well it doesn't look fine now. If you're going to bring the bedhead look back in style, then do it right."

Before he had time to respond, I went up to him and tousled his hair, making sure that every inch was unkempt. As soon as I let go of his head, his hands were already on mine, and Barbara was howling with laughter the entire time.

"There. Now we're twins."

Dick and I looked at each other in the eye until we both broke out into grins. I laughed when I looked at his composure and pointed at him.

"Oh my gosh, you look terrible!"

He cackled as he pointed at my hair.

"You should speak for yourself! You look like a caveman with that hair!"

Barbara grabbed her side as she nodded her head.

"The both of you do!"

I got out my phone and handed it to Barbara.

"Take a photo of us, will you?"

I wrapped my arms around Dick and leaned my head towards him, and he hugged me tightly as he laughed.

"We better come out looking like idiots."

We said 'cheese' as Barbara snapped the pic, and she smirked as she gave me back my phone.

"It should be really easy for you, Dick."

He stuck out his tongue at her and looked at my screen as I opened the picture. We burst out laughing when we saw our faces, and I had to look away to keep from crying.

"Send it to me, yeah?"

I nodded and thanked Barbara, and I asked her to put her number in my phone as I wiped my eyes.

"Dude, I got an idea!"

I looked at Dick and nodded my head.

"Shoot."

"We should get this photo framed and we could place it in Bruce's room!"

I laughed and placed my hand on Dick's shoulder.

"Yes, just yes. Oh, wait! I've got a better one! We frame the photo for our own rooms, and Alfred's too, and for Bruce we get it woven into a blanket! Imagine his face when he sees it!"

We started laughing so hard that the civilians around us gave us weird looks as Barbara ushered us into the parlor.

"You guys look like you're both on crack."


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello all of my awesome fanfic readers! I'm back with some more drama and action to add to this chapter. I was really excited to have written this chapter, since it picks up the pace of the story and will let me introduce my other OCs ****_very_**** soon. I hope you enjoy, and I'm sorry if the formatting of the story is a bit odd. I tried my best to fix it but nothing happened. :S**

Three months had past since it was my first day of school, and I was already used to having to balance my identity as Shadow Wolf and my identity as Deborah Lloyd. What I still wasn't used to was the attention that I received from the media and school. As Deborah Lloyd, I was basically stalked by the paparazzi when I was in town with Dick or my friends, and as Shadow Wolf, I was on every news channel across the nation. It sucked.

So there I was on a Saturday morning at Gotham News, where I was waiting to go on a talk show with Dick. We were currently in a dressing room, and we both had to undergo the process of being bombarded with a makeup and hair team, which wasn't very pleasant. Dick had his hair slicked back and he wore a plain white tee that was tucked in with a brown belt, and he wore tan jeans, a black leather jacket and some black boots. I was wearing a blue long sleeved peplum top with some black disco pants and black pumps, and I wore silver jewelry that was worth more than my entire outfit that had cost me around three grand.

"Looking sharp, Richie."

He looked over at me and gave me a thumbs up as I stood from my chair.

"You look good too, Debs. You're just really huge with those heels, though."

I chuckled as got out my phone, and I took a selfie with him before anyone else came in.

"Its crazy how I have over 100,000 followers on PicPerf already! I barely made one three weeks ago, and bam! I get like over 4000 comments per post."

He smirked as he checked his phone himself, and nodded.

"Yeah, well you're barely getting there, Debs. I congratulate you."  
>I rolled my eyes as I left my phone in my bag, since I didn't want to seem rude if I carried my phone with me during the interview.<p>

"Hey Debs, can I ask you something?"

I knew that he was going to bring up something about my identity being exposed, but since I knew that the room had video cameras with sound, I opened the door.

"Sure, but lets get out of here. I think that we've been here long enough."

He nodded and whispered to me as he walked out.

"Good thinking."

We continued to walk down the hallway, and he pointed to the door that would lead us to the lot in the back.

"Through there."

Once we were outside, we both sat down on the sidewalk, which was rather hard for me to do since my pants were skin-tight and I felt like they would rip in half. I sighed in relief once I was in a somewhat comfortable position, and I looked over at Dick and tilted my lips.

"You can ask me that question now."

He looked around to make sure that it was just us, and he spoke with a cautious tone.

"Aren't you worried about getting in trouble with the League? I know that you trust the people from SPYRAL, but what about us? Will we be safe?...I don't want to lose you, and neither does Bruce or Alfred."

I grabbed his shoulder and looked at his worried blue eyes as I spoke.

"Dick, you shouldn't worry about me, okay? I left the League and my family with their consent, and I doubt that they'll actually want to take me back as one of their own. As long as Bruce and I don't get involved with them, we should be alright. Ra's knows who we are, and he has authority over my father. I know that you've encountered him before and you know that he is a dangerous man, and I will do everything I can to protect you guys if he comes to Gotham."

"But Ra's wouldn't let him, right?"

"My mother and Talia wouldn't, and I know that Ra's wouldn't like the idea of Deathstroke disobeying him. The conflict would be between them, not me."

"So you're saying that we should trust your family?"

"Of course not. It's...complicated. Well, just trust me, okay?"

He nodded and I smiled.

"So on the bright side, I might be able to find some people I trust very, _very_ soon."

"How so?"

I pointed at the building behind us and he grinned.

"Oh, right. Well hopefully they watch T.V."

"Frankie would die without a T.V, so I'm pretty sure that he'll at least have the chance to see me here. As for the others, I'm not so sure. Well, Ben is probably on an island becoming a mad scientist, and Marlowe is probably the owner of a casino of some sort. Reese is probably somewhere in China or Japan, and Will is most likely back with his grandfather. I can't really say that I'm right though, since we weren't allowed to tell each other where we would be heading afterwards."

"I see. Well, I really want to meet them. If they're as good as you say they are, then I definitely want to learn a few tips from them."

I chuckled and pulled a strand of my hair.

"Oh, they'll definitely have plenty to teach you. Since our team was one of the newest with the youngest members, we had a lot to prove to the other teams that had superhumans that we were just as deadly and efficient as they were."

"There were superhumans in SPYRAL?!"

I nodded and sighed.

"There were Demigods, metahumans, wizards and all sorts of strange people too. I tried my best to steer away from most of them though, since I felt intimidated by them and because I really, really don't like magic."

"I kind of noticed that when we would watch Harry Potter. Can I ask why?"  
>"I got some bad trauma from it from two different incidents. The first time was when I was six and my mother died, and I was forced to watch her revive herself in a Lazarus Pit as some weird voodoo stuff began to occur. The second time was when I was in Africa with Ra's for some 'bonding' time, which was basically me accompanying him to places where people needed his sanction. Some tribe believed that he was a god, and held a feast and ceremony in his honor. They believed in human sacrifice, so you can imagine what I saw and experienced that day. I always thought that magic and the underworld wasn't real, and I realized how wrong I was then. And even though there are good people that use magic and come from a background related to it, I don't believe that magic is right at all. No matter what people may think, it isn't safe or right to use it."<p>

"So do you believe that all supernatural elements are evil?"

I shrugged and looked up at the morning sky, which was slightly cloudy.

"I dunno...I mean, I don't really know what I believe in, but I know what I don't believe in...Sounds pretty confusing, huh?"

Dick tilted his head as he looked over at me.

"I get it. I'm not sure if others will, but I do."

I grinned and wrapped my left arm around him.

"Well, that's all that matters."

He checked his wristwatch and sighed.

"We should get going now. We're gonna be on air in seven."

He got up and gave me a hand as I wobbled my way on my feet as he laughed.

"You're a super-assassin and you can't even get up on your feet with heels without looking like a penguin!"

"Oh, shut up."

The moment we walked back inside the building there was people crowding all over us, from photographers to creepy girls who seemed to have stalked Dick here. Barbara wasn't lying when she told me that he was a chick magnet.

We were surprisingly saved by Chase, who was also in the same hallway at the moment. Some bodyguards shooed the people away as Chase walked with us to the back of the stage.

"Thanks for getting us out of there, Chase. I don't know about Dick, but I felt like I was going to be eaten alive by them."

Dick nodded his head as Chase laughed.

"It's been six years for me, and I still haven't been used to it."

Chase flashed his pearly whites and put his hands in his pockets, which made his hair fall out of place. He usually had his caramel colored hair slicked back at school, but he currently had it loose and slightly shaggy- emphasis on 'slightly'. He was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans, and he looked nice and comfortable. I envied him.

"So how come you're in casual clothes?"

He smirked and looked at the both of us.

"I'm guessing that you aren't a fan of dressing up this early in the morning."

We both nodded and he laughed.

"I guess you two are related after all. Well, I'm usually not dressed like this on weekends, but since Alyssa is out in Paris for the next few weeks, I have some time to slack off for a bit and enjoy my freedom while I have it."

His blue eyes widened as he stopped in his tracks and muttered a few curses.

"I-I'm sorry. Please don't repeat what I just told you guys. Alyssa would kill me if she found out I said that."

I chuckled as Dick snorted, and I placed my hand on Chase's firm shoulder.

"Your secret's safe with us."

He sighed in relief and thanked us before Dick spoke up.

"Hey, I don't mean to pry into your personal life, dude, but I've known you for a good amount of time-"

I raised my eyebrows at Dick as he continued speaking. They're friends?

"-and you seem to know that Alyssa isn't really, uh, compatible with you. So why do you stick with her?"

I felt out of place being there as they were going to have some guy talk, so I pointed at a random direction.

"I'll go over there while you guys talk."

I began to walk before Chase grabbed my arm and laughed.

"You'd be walking in a janitor's closet if you went that way, Deborah."

"...Oh."

"And it's fine for you to stay here with us. I truly don't mind, and besides, you can maybe give me some advice about Alyssa."

I nodded and pointed at his hand that was around my arm, and immediately released it.

"Sorry, I forgot."

"It's okay."

"So to answer your question, Dick. I honestly don't really know. I guess its because I get nostalgic of how the way things used to be between us. She was my childhood sweetheart, you know?"

Dick nodded and the older teen sighed before looking back at the both of us.

"I know that I'm probably just bum to her now, but she loved me at one point, and I'm hoping that she can remember that."

I felt my heart break at his words, and they made me realize how much a man can actually care for a girl. I always thought that the ones who always got hurt or too attached was the girls, since most of the relationships I've known were like that. My mother, Talia, and even me. I've only had one relationship before, and I got hurt really bad physically and emotionally. But since I never knew how relationships were supposed to be, I took the hits and heartbreak thinking that it was normal. I was sixteen, and the only person who knew about it other than Dick and Bruce was Reese. He walked in on me getting punched by my ex, Zack, and he nearly killed the guy with his bare hands. I had never seen him so angry before, and he never left my side until his girlfriend died.

My heart was currently oozing with pain, but I was able to clear my mind of the memory as I looked back at Chase. Even though I knew nothing about having a good relationship, I wanted to comfort him and give him reassuring words. What came out of my mouth was nothing of that sort, though.

"I think you shouldn't be with her if you have these doubts about her fidelity to you. You deserve happiness and someone who can cherish good times with you now, and not in the past."

Dick nodded and saved me by adding on to my not-very-nice-but-encouraging words.

"She's right. You're an awesome guy, Chase, and I know that you have a past with Alyssa, but you should be making a future with someone who won't change her feelings for you. I mean, you're only nineteen, so you got plenty of time to be without commitments to anyone too."

I smiled at his words, since those were the same words I told Dick before he broke up with Zatanna, and Chase gave him some kind of 'bro' hug.

"You guys need to get going, but thanks man. I really mean it."

"No problem, dude. I'll see you soon."

Chase gave me a warm hug and I hugged him right back, and I was surprised by how much I actually meant it.

"Thank you, Deborah. If I don't see you after this, I'll see you at school. And I'll ask my parents when you can come over to our place. Olivia will freak out for sure."

"I'm looking forward to it...I hope you can figure things out between you and Alyssa. I'm sorry for offending her in front of you when we first met."

He grinned and nudged me before he took a step back.

"Don't worry about it. I guess I just opened my eyes now and realized that its time to move on. Good luck up there!"  
>I grinned as I turned around to face Dick.<p>

"Ready?"

"Ready."

"Now please put your hands together for Richard Grayson and Deborah Lloyd!"

There was a bunch of screams and shouts as Dick and I made our way on stage, and we both greeted the two hosts, Jamie and Chris. Jamie was a short, white woman with butter-blonde hair and brown eyes, and Kris was a huge black man with crystal studs and a buzz cut.

We sat down on the couch that was provided for us, and Jamie was bouncing in her seat.

"This is so exciting! Dick, we love having you here as always, but this is Deborah's first time on a talk show, correct?"

I smiled and crossed my legs as Dick leaned forward.

"That's right, and it's an honor to be here with the both of you. With all of you, in fact."

I waved to the audience as they cheered, and Chris raised his fist in the air.

"Take that, Central City!"

We all laughed, and Jamie sat up straight.

"Well, first things first. Deborah, how are you feeling in Gotham?"

Chris spoke up before I had the chance to answer.

"Jamie, you sound like a doctor. How are you feeling, Deborah? Is your arm doing better? Would you like me to prescribe more penicillin for you?"

Chris guffawed as Jamie slapped his arm.

"Leave me alone, Chris! You are such a bully."

She looked at the audience as she pointed at him.

"Can you believe this guy?"

I laughed with the audience and cleared my throat as the laughter cooled down.

"Well, to answer your question Jamie, I love being here in Gotham with Bruce and Dick. The hot dogs are great here, and we have one of the best football teams ever! Go Gotham Knights!"

Everyone cheered as Chris gave a huge "whoop!", and Jamie clapped her hands.

"I'm so glad to hear that! And what's it like living with such a dreamy billionaire and your cousin whom you haven't seen in six years?"

"Well, Bruce is such an amazing man and I immediately clicked with him. As for-"

"Clicked, you say?"

The whole audience said 'ooh' as Chris wiggled his eyebrows at me, and I shook my head.

"Oh, not like that! I meant that I really get along with him and-"

Jamie rolled her eyes and smiled.

"Oh, ignore Chris. He was just teasing you. Chris, you need to apologize to Deborah right now."

"I'm sorry for flustering you like that, Deborah. We cool?"

I grinned and gave the man a thumbs up.

"We're cool."

Jamie looked at Dick and gave him a perky smile.

"So Richard, what is it like to be reunited with your cousin after all these years?"

Dick looked over at me and raised an eyebrow as I gave a smug smile.

"It's been a blast having her with us, even though she constantly empties out our fridge."

Everyone laughed as Chris looked over at me incredulously.

"Girl, is that true?"

I blushed as I shrugged.

"Well…"

Jamie nodded as she looked at Chris.

"It is very true! Dick posted some photos a while back on PicPerf and we'll even show you all so you can believe it yourself."

She pointed at the screen that was in a position that let everyone see, and a large photo emerged of only my butt and legs sticking out as the rest of my body was inside of the refrigerator, and you see Alfred in the background laughing.

Laughter filled the room as I hid my face, and I groaned.

Chris shook his head and stared at me.

"I don't believe it! Richard even captioned the photo, which says 'grubbin' down'!"

I punched Dick in the arm as he guffawed and looked back at the audience.

"I have an explanation for that. I was trying to find the chocolate syrup for my chocolate milk in the morning, and the bottle was literally all the way in the back of the fridge, and it took me like six minutes to find it!"

Dick nodded and pointed at the screen.

"Alfred and I were laughing at her stubbornness, and you should have heard what she was yelling."

"You call it stubbornness, I call it perseverance."

"And you sounded like an alien from Mars in there."

I stuck my tongue out at him and he looked at Chris and Jamie.

"The things she would do for chocolate syrup."

Jamie laughed as Chris looked back at me.

"But you got him back, right?"

I smirked as Dick said, "Oh gosh, no."

"You bet. Can you put it on the screen?"

Chris rubbed his hands and looked back at the audience as the screen came up.

"This gon' be good."

Instead of a photo, a video showed up on the screen of Dick wearing a white muscle shirt and black sweats dancing in his room to "Moves Like Jagger". He was using his hairbrush as his microphone and he when he began to dance in a somewhat sensual manner, you could hear me laugh so hard in the video that Dick jumped up and nearly fell off his bed in surprise. The video ended with me zooming in on Dick's mortified face as the song ended, and I turned the camera to my face and said, "That's a wrap!".

We all laughed and Chris was literally crying from laughing so hard.

"Awh, man! She got you good!"

We got off the stage after we said our goodbyes to Jamie, Chris and the audience, and I looked over at Dick once we headed back to our dressing rooms.

"You want to go out for a bit?"

Dick shook his head as I grabbed my bag from the room and gave the key to one of the staff.

"I can't. I'm meeting up with the team today. I'll take a raincheck on that, though."

I smiled and got out my phone as we walked to my car.

"Sure thing, bud. Hold up, Bruce is calling. Hello?"

"_Hey, I wanted to be the first one to congratulate you this morning. Great job up there, Deborah. You were fantastic."_

"Thanks, Bruce. I guess that I'm going to head home now since Dick is going to meet up with his team in a bit. Do you need me to do anything for you, though? I've got plenty of time on my hands."

"_I was actually going to tell you when I got back from work, but I have news for you."_

I gave Dick the keys to my car and covered the speaker with my hand.

"You can start the car if you want. Is it good news or bad news?"

"_Depends on how you take it. Hold on a sec, I'm just going to mute the security cameras for a bit...done. The Justice League took notice of you and want to meet you personally."_

I gave a confused look though I knew that Bruce couldn't see me.

"Already? It's only been three weeks, though. Wait, you told them about me, didn't you?"

*silence*...

"Isn't it a little too soon, though? What could they want from me already?"

"_They just want to know you, that's all."_

"And you're okay with this? I know you trust them, but-"

"_We'll be heading to the headquarters in five hours. Be ready by then. Say hi to Dick for me. Goodbye."_

I rolled my eyes and hung up as I opened the car door, and Dick raised his brows.

"What's up?"

"I'm meeting with the League later today. I'm not sure if I should be nervous or not, though."

I drove out of the parking lot as Dick whistled.

"Already? The news must have gotten around. Well, that or Bruce did some talking."

"Bats isn't very social so I'm guessing they saw the news. Wait, does the League know our identities?"

"Not all of them. Just Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Martian Manhunter, the Flash, and Aquaman."

"Just a few, eh?"

"This is great news, though! They'll probably invite you soon to join. I mean, why else would they want to meet you so soon?"

"I don't know...But I'm not interested right now. I've got to figure things out still, you know?"

"Yeah. Well, I personally haven't experienced what you're going through, but I can understand why you're hesitant."

I nodded as I drove by Gotham Academy, and I sighed.

"Wish me good luck."

I met up with Bruce at the Batcave, where I was already in my suit without my visor on, and he walked in and nodded at me as he went to grab his suit. We made small talk with each other until he finished putting his cowl on, and I immediately realized that there was a huge claw mark on the back of his head.

"Where did you get that claw mark?"

He grunted before removing his cowl to put on another one, and he looked at me briskly.

"I had a run in with Catwoman last night."

I nodded and was mentally whistling at him, and even though I hadn't said a word, he glared at me as if he knew what I was thinking. He's the Batman, of course he knew.

"I am _not _having an affair with her. It is unprofessional and meaningless to strike a relationship with a woman like her."

I was about to respond, but I held my tongue and nodded in agreement since I knew that it would be stupid of me to do so.

"Let's go."

"_Batman 02. Authorized Guest, A01_."

I walked into the Watchtower with Batman, where a few of the League members were already waiting. I still had my visor off out of respect, but I wore my black domino mask since Batman had his cowl on.

I followed Batman as he made his way to the conference room, and I looked around and noticed that the technology was somewhat similar to SPYRAL's. I wasn't really a tech-whiz, but I knew quality tech when I saw it, and the Watchtower was definitely state of the art. I wondered if they had a cafeteria.

I broke out of my thoughts as I looked in front of me to see the members of the League there, and I was so thankful that I wasn't on their bad side. Superman flew over to greet me, but Batman gave him a look that said, "Not until I say so", and the Kryptonian backed off. All eyes were on Batman and I, and he spoke for the both of us.

"I brought Shadow Wolf like you requested, but if you say or do anything that has her feel uncomfortable, I will personally send you off to watch over the Team for three weeks."

There was an awkward silence before Superman came over to welcome me.

"It's very nice to meet you after all this time, Deborah. I-"

He was cut off by Batman, who gave him an icy glare before speaking.

"You do not call her by her civilian name without our permission."

"Right, right. I'm sorry, Shadow Wolf-is that better?"

I smiled as I shook his hand.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, _Clark._"

He looked over at Batman and raised his eyebrows.

"Really?"

There was no response from the Dark Knight, and Superman rolled his eyes.

"Are you really going to stand there and scrutinize us as we greet her? We're just saying hello, not proposing to her."

I figured that he probably pushed Bruce's buttons often since Bruce didn't decapitate his head right then, but I had to agree with Superman. I looked over at Batman and nodded to let him know that it was okay for him to leave me if he needed to. He relaxed a bit, and stared at Superman before leaving.

"Don't do anything stupid. I'll be back."

Once Batman left, everyone came towards me as if the tension was lifted from the room. Superman was still by my side as the Flash came speeding up to us.

"Hi, nice to meet you! I'm Barry, but I'm pretty sure you know who I am. Hey, that's a cool mask you have there. Can I see it?"

I hesitated for a fraction of a second before handing my visor to the speedster, and kind of wished Batman was still here. It wasn't like I was disturbed by the heroes, but I didn't like having all their attention on me.

Wonder Woman walked over to me as the Flash was telling Superman something about the design of my visor, and I tensed up even more. She had an intimidating aura to her that made me feel on guard, but her smile helped me loosen up a little.

"Hello, Shadow Wolf. I am Diana. You are a very formidable warrior at such a young age! I am truly quite impressed by you."

"Thank you, Diana, and please call me Deborah. It is an honor to be complemented by an Amazon warrior like yourself."

She beamed and placed a hand on my shoulder as the Flash put on my visor over his face.

"One day you should accompany me to Themyscira and you can receive Amazonian training when you have the time. I would be delighted to show you my homeland."

I inclined my head to the older woman and smiled softly.

"I'll be sure to take up that offer when the time comes."

The Martian Manhunter appeared out of nowhere and was on my right side.

"Greetings, Shadow Wolf. You may want to ask the Flash to return your mask now before something unfortunate occurs."

I greeted the alien before grabbing my visor from the Flash's extended hand, and was amused when he looked at Martian Manhunter and pouted.

"You're no fun!"

I turned around when I heard footsteps coming our way, and Superman looked over at me.

"You hear it too?"

I nodded and focused on the noise as I made deductions.

"It sounds like two people, maybe like forty seconds away from here."

He chuckled as he turned to me and shook his head.

"It's Green Arrow and Black Canary. They're arguing about coming here late."

"Ah."

Soon afterwards, Green Arrow and Black Canary entered with irritated faces, but Black Canary quickly brightened up when she saw me standing between Wonder Woman and Superman.

Green Arrow shook my hand and grinned as he turned away from the blonde.

"Hey, it's finally nice to meet you! I've heard and seen a lot about you on the news. Boy, do you sure know how to kick some a**."

He looked at Clark and rolled his eyes.

"Sorry we're late. Dinah insisted on bringing some homemade cookies for the girl."

She glared at the archer, and no one said a single word until she walked over to me and placed a plate covered in tin foil on the table.

"Hi, Shadow Wolf. It's so nice to meet you after all this time! I'm Dinah, or Black Canary if you wanted to get technical."

I smiled and placed my visor on the table as well.

"You can call me Deborah if you want. I am sure that you already know who I am."

"Okay, it's nice to meet you Deborah. Say, where's Batman? I would have expected him to be here."

"He was, but after he knew that I was alright being here without him, he left. I'm guessing that he is assigning a mission to the younger members right now."

"Ah, I see. So you have known him for a while, yes?"

"I knew him ever since I was a child. From the moment that he became involved with my grandfather and his League of Assassins."

"Your grandfather is Ra's Al Ghul?"

I nodded as she looked taken aback for a moment.

"My mother is Nyssa Raatko Al Ghul, and my father is Slade Wilson. You know them, right?"

"I was involved in some pretty heavy stuff with the League, but I only met your mother briefly. I encountered Slade on different missions, though. So I'm guessing that you have a pretty gritty past, just like Bruce."

"Yeah, pretty much."

I told Dinah everything she needed to know about me, from my early childhood days as an assassin to my more recent days working for SPYRAL. As I went more in depth about my past experiences, I noticed how she wasn't shocked or appalled like the other League members who were listening in on our conversation. She just nodded in understanding, her blue eyes offering comfort as I spoke about some of my worst memories. She must have known to some extent to what it felt like being manipulated by the League, and I realized then how young she was. She looked no older than twenty-six, and I admired her for tenacity as a crime-fighter. The other people in the room became heroes without a painful past that led them to where they were now. She knew what it was like having a horrible past, and she didn't conceal it like Batman. I felt like she was the most like-minded person in the room to me, and I was thankful for that. I felt like I wouldn't belong here, and yet I did.

There was silence as I finished speaking, and no one except Dinah looked at me the same way before. Even though some of their faces were masked, I saw that they realized that I was not an innocent girl who had suddenly become a hero with Batman's help.

Clark looked at me in the eye and spoke seriously as I made no sign of vulnerability after all I said.

"How old are you, Deborah?"

I took off my domino mask and stared at it as I responded.

"I'm eighteen, sir."

I looked up and watched their reactions as I stayed silent for the moment. Wonder Woman looked enraged while Dinah placed her hand on my shoulder, and the Amazon turned to the other upset heroes.

"We must do something about this. Why did Batman not mention this to us?"

I spoke up before anyone else could.

"We can't, or at least the Justice League can't. The League of Assassins is involved with the Light, and you are all responsible for protecting the world. You shouldn't involve yourselves with the League for they are not your average villains. They are skilled and trained to be assassins and spies, and you are all public heroes who fight metahumans and aliens."

"She's right."

Almost everyone jumped when Batman appeared at the door, and he walked over by my side as he continued to speak.

"I am aware that you are all concerned for Deborah, but she has managed to find a safe lifestyle that will not have to be involved with her past. Whatever happens to her in the meantime is not your concern."

Clark spoke up as it looked like his temper was rising.

"It is too our concern! There may be others who are going through what she went through right now. Ra's Al Ghul is already involved with the Light and the Injustice League, so why can't the Justice League put him down once and for all?"

"Because we made the decision to go public. All our identities, our loved ones, and our homes would be exposed and destroyed if we dared to pit against them. Being superhuman does not mean you can save everyone."

Wonder Woman crossed her arms and steadied her fierce gaze at all of us.

"So we know that we cannot avenge Deborah's past, but we must carry justice to those who continue to roam the Earth with cruel intentions. I do not care how dangerous Ra's may be, or putting my life at stake. I care about doing the right thing for the right purpose. I am furious for what Deborah has gone through, but I will not give in to my anger and act solely on revenge. Bruce, your reason is logical and will keep us all safe, but you must believe that ignoring this iniquity is letting them have the upper hand."

Batman remained silent until a few moments later.

"Then what do you suggest?"

Diana looked over at me and nodded.

"I was hoping that Deborah had something in mind."

I furrowed my brow and looked at the floor as I tried my very best to come up with a solution. I honestly didn't know what to do then, since I never was the one to come up with a plan or tactic, I just did what I was told. _Think, Deborah. _Wait…

"I got it."

I looked up and stared at the older heroes as Diana gave me an encouraging look.

"Tell us."

"The Justice League went public shortly you were attacked from the inside by the Joker. Before that, you didn't plan on going public."

Batman caught on before anyone else and spoke.

"You believe that if we infiltrate the League of Assassins from the inside and have them exposed, they will have no choice but to turn public. Interesting concept."

The Flash grinned and cheered.

"It's brilliant!"

Batman gave him a look of acknowledgement before responding.

"We wouldn't be able to do it ourselves. We have to continue to be the face to the public."

Green Arrow scratched his beard as he shrugged.

"What if we have another branch in the League? A covert team that carries these types of missions out."

Martian Manhunter responded as he turned his gaze on all of us.

"Who would be the members of the team? I believe that it would be best if they have had experience with covert missions."

I looked over at Batman and grinned.

"I know just the people we need."

**So what did you all think? The talk show, the run-in with pretty boy Chase, the Justice League, or anything that you liked in particular? I'm trying my very best to make this story entertaining for you guys, and I really hope that you're enjoying this story. Favorite or Follow my story if you haven't already, and reviews are always welcome! :)**

**Fun Fact-Deborah used to talk very formal and didn't know how to use slang until Frankie called her out on it. It took her about a year and a half to talk like a "normal" American, but she often talks in different accents for fun.**


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